Community associations take stock of tornado lessons

Representatives of Ottawa's community associations met Wednesday night to see what they could learn from last month's tornadoes.

Robert Onley, vice-president of the tornado-affected Trend-Arlington Community Association, described how his community responded.

"You never think you'll be organizing a tornado response," he told the representatives of other community associations Wednesday.

"I was amazed at how quickly you get the sense from the community that the social fabric starts to fray. There was this frustration, verging on anger that was percolating."

Need to communicate

Onley said that frustration encouraged people to pitch in and the community association needing to manage and direct nearly 250 volunteers.

Part of that was going door-to-door and assessing which homes could use the help of volunteers.

On top of the destruction of century-old white pine trees, some of which smashed into homes, Trend-Arlington is also close to the damaged Merivalepower station and faced several days without power and steadycell phone reception.

"It was a real sobering moment when you realize that the only way you could communicate was to find people where they physically were, or hopefully make a call through a landline," Onley said.

Need to plan

At one point, the community association representatives broke into chatter at the idea that they all needed to have their ownemergency response plan.

Onley said he recommends each community association establish a contact at the City of Ottawa's emergency management office, find a way to identify community needs, create a communication plan for reaching neighbours and stock emergency supplies at a local community centre.

"These were all things that we developed on the fly in the midst of what I would call total chaos," Onley said.

Representatives from the City of Ottawa's emergency preparedness team, Hydro Ottawa and the Red Cross also spoke about the response and the coordinate with each other.

"I think it's really important that communities like this have these conversations," said Anna Sawiskiwith the Red Cross.

"We're not alone as organizations."

The Red Cross recommends creating emergency kits for cars, home and the workplace that include food, medical and other essentials required for 72 hours so people can take care of themselves as organizations respond.