Climate Prepared Neighbourhoods

Last month, the news was dominated by two extreme weather systems, one impacting Atlantic Canada starting Friday night, September 23 and another in Florida starting Wednesday afternoon, September 28.

While Edmonton will not be subjected to hurricanes and related storms, it is susceptible to extreme winds; heavy rainfall resulting in overland flooding; freezing rain events that weigh down infrastructure, including power lines; extreme heat; and more. (Visit edmonton.ca/ClimateAlmanac to learn more about Edmonton's changing climate.)

A city staff person, Heather W., shared that she is pretty proud of her 88 year old mom for surviving "Fiona’s Fury", which left her and thousands of others without power for 11 long days in Nova Scotia. Some waited longer for their power to be restored.

Heather said, “By expecting and experiencing frequent, big storms that literally leave you in the dark, my mom was not in a big panic to prepare, except to ensure she had enough storm chips to get her through!” She added, “She was able to survive well because she had all her necessities at hand, well in advance. Chips just make everything better.”

Earlier this month, the City met with citizens to begin work on creating resources which will support them to work together to better prepare their neighbourhoods for extreme weather events. In addition to building citizen capacity to identify vulnerabilities in their neighbourhood, they will also learn more about the skills and assets their neighbours can offer, should an emergency situation arise.

Heather mentions that her mom was one of very few people who was able to connect with anyone because her very basic "storm phone" plugs directly into the phone jack without requiring a power cord. “Having a $20 phone to plug in for times like this was unbelievably comforting, not only for my mom, but for us kids trying to find out if she was okay.”

Most with cell phones found they were unable to text or talk because cell towers were down, and they were losing battery charge as they looked for cell service. “While social media works well most of the time, they were unable to tap into any news that way. In fact, for the first several days, I knew more about the storm’s damage than they did!” Heather adds.

Her mom eventually tuned into her battery-operated radio to find a local station, after it was back on the air. Her mother’s gas stove provided her and many neighbours with hot water for tea and, eventually, washing up as the days wore on without the power required for hot water from the taps.

Some community members roamed through the devastated town soon after the storm had passed, chainsaws in hand, to clear driveways and public spaces from the many fallen trees. Heather says her mom was in tears watching young people clear the five massive spruce that blocked her driveway. She was one of the lucky ones, with her roof mostly intact, while eight others needed to evacuate quickly.

Nothing, short of a different design construction, could have helped avoid that intensity of destruction. “The experts reported that 10 straight hours of unrelenting 120 km/hr winds gusting upward of 160 is hard on everything in its path,” says Heather.

People opened their homes and brought generators to community centres to offer comfort. Volunteers prepared meals at community centres. Some offered shower facilities. Restaurants worked under the light of lamps and flashlights to serve up free food to impacted citizens and thousands of powerline workers. The generosity of neighbours helping neighbours, communities helping communities was clearly evident.

The Climate Prepared Neighbourhood program being co-developed between Abundant Community Edmonton and Change for Climate will help citizens to “Get Neighbouring” so that when bad weather strikes, citizens know who to call on for a little extra help.

For further information about the program’s development, email us at changeforclimate@edmonton.ca.