Carleton Place council launching early review of storm response

The Town of Carleton Place is launching an early review into how it responded to the severe storm on May 21.

The derecho knocked over hydro poles, uprooted trees and left thousands without power for days.

“Normally an evaluation or a summation of such an event such as the power outage and storm we had would not be discussed for a few months,” explained Coun. Linda Seccaspina. “However, I think that it's very important to evaluate responses and make adjustments from such an event like this as soon as possible.”

While she praised staff for its response, she noted that if a review was done sooner, people would be less likely to forget small but crucial details.

Seccaspina's motion gained unanimous approval, with fellow councillors providing some guidance to staff.

“I'd like to see how we can better communicate with our citizens and eliminate gaps in our communications within that review, find out what outside agencies can help us with our communication to our citizens, how we can also better our community engagement back and forth between both staff and our citizens and lastly, what ways we can further assist our vulnerable sectors of our population to make sure that their situation during any emergency, whether it be short or long is better than it may have been in the past,” outlined Coun. Toby Randell.

A review is already underway that was mandated by the Ontario government.

“We found some things that came along during this that we've heard from citizens, and those are the things that might not get addressed in that that I'd like to see get addressed,” said Randell.

A response from staff is expected back sometime in August.