Oh my Goodness! A little bit of rain combined with a boiled water advisory and look what happens! Fights break out at Costco, hundreds of people line up at Real Canadian Superstore, sell outs at Canadian Tire and virtually every other retailer in the neighbourhood, police called in to control riotous crowds...for what? The new Playstation 3? No, that was the day before, this time the most precious item on everybodies shopping list was bottled water.
I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. I was walking past the Save-on-Foods in Lynn Valley yesterday at the same time as a poor, beleaguered store employee was pulling a large pallet of 500 ml water bottles from the store and into the mall entrance for the waiting horde. The pallet jack wasn't even lowered to the ground when the employee was literally pushed out of the way, the shrink wrap torn from the pallet and people, like locusts swarmed taking as many cases as they could barely carry. It was incredible to watch and I couldn't help wonder if these bottles contained water from the fountain of youth itself.
Why the panic? Recent heavy rainfalls combined with high wind have caused mudslides into each of the lower mainlands three water reservoirs. This mud and silt has caused turbidity levels to rise, up to 90% at the Seymour Reservoir and 70% at Capilano. (Turbidity has dropped significantly since and advisories for the Coquitlam reservoir have now been lifted). Despite these high levels we have been assured by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority that the boil water advisories are "precautionary" and in place due to the potential for bacteria to become embedded in silt particles, making it difficult for chlorine to kill.
Panic is an extremely dangerous thing. I deal with a certain amount of panic all the time through my job and the other things that I'm involved with and I've seen panic do some strange things to otherwise calm and rational people. But panic need not happen and the easiest way to reduce panic in an emergency (or precautionary boil water advisory) is to be prepared for it. One easy way to get prepared is to develop a family emergency plan that identifies these 10 elements:
1. Family meeting place - Determine a place to go if you can't stay in your house.
2. Out of town contact - A person to phone to get information and to check in.
3. Home hazard hunt - Identify and correct the hazards in your home.
4. Emergency kits - Create Grab and Go and Stay in Home kits.
5. Emergency Supplies - Including things like food and water.
6. Utilities - Locate gas and water shut offs and learn how and when to shut them off.
7. Sanitation - What will you do if your toilets don't work.
8. Kids and Disasters - Prepare everyone in your family.
9. Pets and Disasters - Are the special considerations for your pets in a disaster?
10. Practice, Practice, Practice.
Looking at water alone, your family should have enough clean, potable (bottled) water on hand to supply 4 litres (1 gallon) per person, per day for at least 3 days. Remember that (depending on the nature of the emergency) this water may also be needed for things other than drinking like brushing teeth and cooking so keeping a bit more on hand is probably a good idea. Another great way to ensure that you are prepared is to educate yourself about the potential emergencies that could happen in your community and the hazards that they would likely present for you in particular. Most communities provide some sort of basic emergency preparedness training to residents free of charge and there is plenty of information available to you at your local library or through the Provincial Emergency Program. Please check out the links below and do yourself and your families a favour by getting prepared.
Next time I'll tell you about where you can go to get a coffee the next time we find ourselves in a nasty boiled water advisory
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