Power outage emergency protocol in the works for Charlottetown

Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee wants to ensure that residents affected by long power outages have somewhere warm to go.

Lee has asked Randy MacDonald, the city's fire chief and emergency measures co-ordinator, to develop a plan that could include purchasing generators to turn some community centres into emergency shelters.

The lack of an emergency plan became apparent after an ice and snow storm hit P.E.I. in the first week in December, said Lee.

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"There were seniors' buildings without heat or electricity for over 21 hours and the city was not aware of it until a day or two after it was all over," he said.

"I just think we need to develop a protocol with Maritime Electric and we need to have a plan as to how we respond. The plan would call, for after a certain time period of no heat, no electricity in an area that we would then open a community centre that would be heated, places for people to charge their telecommunications devices, space to feed them."

The fire chief's report will include the cost of buying generators, where they should be located and other emergency efforts that should kick in.

"As the weather gets worse and more frequent and that sort of thing I think we're getting closer to a time when we're going to have to open up emergency shelters," said MacDonald.

"So, what [the mayor] wants to do is have a plan in place as to what activates that emergency shelter. Get it into place. What are phone calls that have to be made?Creating a better communication between Charlottetown, our office, and Maritime Electric to be able to find out what those numbers are, where those people are impacted in the city."

Seniors want transportation considered too

MacDonald is also looking at how generators could be used at schools for shelters. He said the Canadian Red Cross would run those shelters.

"We've been in contact with the English Language School Board and they've agreed, in general terms, that yes, they could put generators in the schools and we also have hired an electrical consultant to be able to go and cost that out for us," he said.

"You want places for keep children occupied and that sort of thing with children's events. You also have a cafeteria which is vitally important."

The P.E.I. Senior Citizens' Federation is happy to hear about the move.

"We're really excited that they mayor has decided to do that, but we'd also like them to look into transportation in the case of bad weather and a lot of snow to get our seniors from their homes to the places for shelter," said executive director Linda Jean Nicholson.

The federation wants to put a list of any shelters the city would open in its monthly publication.

Lee said he'd like to see the report complete by the end of the month.