Be Prepared: The Severe Weather Events Keep Coming

 

 

Ontarians will face more extreme weather and rising costs in related expenses such as insurance due to climate change, environmental commissioner Gord Miller says.

 

Some types of properties or areas could become uninsurable as the weather becomes more unpredictable, he said Wednesday at Queen's Park.

 

"We cannot adapt to a system that is constantly getting worse," Miller said.  "How big do we make culverts? How much summer heat do we plan for? How do we plan agriculture in a constantly changing environment?"

 

 

 

Canadians, we are told, fundamentally don't care about the complex choices and budget allocations that go into severe weather event preparedness, which includes infrastructure upgrades, service coordination and of course, community consultation and training.

 

All we care about are consumer priorities - low taxes, cheaper services, so on and so forth.  It's all very Galt's Gulch.

 

The problem is, this ain't an approach that's going to work.  The truth is that it's borderline impossible for governments to plan effectively for multiple sustained severe weather events, largely due to cost.  We have ancient infrastructure, too little social housing stock, people that don't maintain their trees or clear the sewage from their street's sewer drain, etc, etc. that impact our structural viability.  

 

Then, there's the money that needs to be put aside for bad weather that may or may not come, which is money not addressing local infrastructure.  There is coordination between services - when an ice storm shuts down a city for a week plus, not days, there simply aren't enough emergency workers to get everywhere they need to be in short time frames. 

 

For governments or agencies to say that only they can address the problem is madness.  For communities to say that they pay taxes, consume services and that's the extent of their responsibility is folly.

 

We will never be 100% ready, but we can do a much better job if we do our part to prepare individually, to collaborate with our communities, get informed about procedures and get involved in the emergency preparedness process - including training on what to do when crises strike and how to hand-off local management to authorities if/when they come.

 

We have a lot of work to do, people - a lot.  The only way we can get it done is by working at it together.  Which means having each of us as our best.

 

That's the frame of mind we need to be getting into - not go as fast as you can alone, but to go the distance together.