Emergency Preparedness

The Emergency Preparedness Task Force was set up to encourage and assist residents of Cadboro Bay to be prepared to cope with whatever disaster or emergency situation may come our way. More specifically though, it is widely anticipated that when (not if) the west coast of BC is hit by a catastrophic earthquake, the municipal response will be overwhelmed and it will take days, if not weeks, for the provincial and federal responses to reach our area in any meaningful way. Therefore, we must be prepared to be self sufficient and have an effective plan for a local emergency response.

To this end:

• The EPTF periodically promotes seminars on such topics as basic first aid and radio communications, and disseminates information on emergency preparedness, such as information sheets on how to prepare for earthquakes, brush fires, tsunamis and storms.
• The EPTF also has annual general meetings where EPTF volunteers undertake exercises on various aspects of the planned local emergency response, and where EPTF executive address / update residents on how the EPTF has been evolving.
• The EPTF will activate in the event of a declared emergency by the mayor of Saanich. At such time, the EPTF executive and volunteers will implement its planned local emergency response. Several SubTask Forces of the EPTF have been established to undertake different aspects of the planned response, including an Incident Command Team, Radio Communications team, Search & Rescue teams and Shelter & First Aid teams.

A recent development in the EPTF has been the adoption of a new Convergent Volunteer program, which has replaced the old Street Captain program.