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@ a glance
- Continue to support community awareness initiatives to ensure citizens are prepared for everything from house fires to hurricane winds to megathrust earthquakes. - Ensure that all homes, businesses and institutions are prepared for natural disaster situations, and provide public or subsidized equipment and resources for those in need. - Ensure that citizens without stable living environments have equal access to emergency-preparedness resources. - Create a standard municipal policy to ensure consistent access to free-landline and/or pay-per-use telephones that are more reliable than mobile devices in large-scale emergency situations. The Victoria Emergency Management
Agency and the Provincial Emergency Program employ thousands
of emergency workers, scientists, specialists and volunteers
each year to make sure Victorians are ready for anything. But
even with these resources at our disposal, the practical availability
of life-saving resources is often reliant upon individuals' own
ability to secure and prepare them. Businesses and public institutions
such as drop-in centres and shelters are not equally equipped
for events such as the megathrust earthquake scientifically predicted
to hit the region at any time. Now is the time to act to assist
and insist that everyone is prepared. Drafting simple policies
now to ensure Victoria has much-overlooked public safety assets
such as plentiful payphones, can and will save lives later. We can also prepare for the
potentially-destructive longterm effects of global warming by
re-planting downed trees with ones known to resist strong winds
and flooding, and absorb high levels of carbon dioxide. The same
approach to intelligent replacement can be taken to everything
from city seawalls and walkways to tall buildings to ensure that
every level of Victoria is as future-proof as possible.
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EMERGENCY
PREPERATION