Nanaimo city employees left this week to help at the emergency operations centre in Williams Lake.
Residents in B.C. Interior communities such as 100 Mile House and Cache Creek have been allowed to return home and in Williams Lake there’s an effort to prepare for citizens’ return to the city, but many areas are still under evacuation alert and wildfires continue across B.C.
Emergency Management B.C. has requested support from city personnel, and Nanaimo recently responded.
Four city employees, who specialize in areas like response recovery and planning, left Sunday and Monday to staff the Cariboo Regional District Emergency Operations Centre in Williams Lake for six to 10 days.
Twenty families, evacuated from the wildfires, have been given a week’s worth of incidentals, billeting and food through emergency social services, with aid funded by the province, according to Brad McRae, chief operations officer.
“Luckily we’ve got some very dedicated staff members that on a moment’s notice went out there without even being asked twice,” said McRae. “With the news of residents now starting to come back into the community, the emergency doesn’t end at that point because you’ve got to get people into the community, there’s all sorts of things like how you move them, how do people get services, supplies, dealing with the general trauma coming back to a municipality that has, for all intents and purposes … gone through hell and back. That’s what they [Nanaimo’s employees] are up there to do.”
McRae said he’d like to think if Nanaimo was in the same situation, municipalities across the province would respond in kind – “it’s what you do.”
City employees volunteered to go to Williams Lake and McRae said Nanaimo will respond if there’s a need for more staff –himself included. Nanaimo Fire Rescue has offered to provide a pumper truck and four-man crew to help support and fight fires.
-files from Ragnar Haagen and Angie Mindus, Black Press