Learning to Bend With the Wind

The storm was Atlantic Canada’s most costly, causing $220 million in damage to Prince Edward Island alone. Hurricane Fiona lasted for hours, damaging municipal infrastructure and ravaging the city’s tree canopy. In the Royalty Oaks natural area many old growth trees were knocked down–some 300 years old.

Quinn said the City’s Emergency Measures Organization, which includes senior staff from different departments, met frequently leading up to the storm as well as afterwards. As a smaller city, Quinn said people from different departments are used to working and supporting each other–something that came in handy after the storm. 

“We all had good working relationships, we all know each other. We had a wide range of experiences and expertise.” They were able to draw on each other’s knowledge of internal staff expertise, but also contractors who could be brought on to help. 

Public safety and clean-up were top priority, but Quinn was also cognizant that “once you’re in the house for a couple days, you want to get out.” His team assessed every playground within the first couple of days as well as inspected trail systems, posting notices about what was closed and what was open for use. 

Without power, communication was a challenge, Quinn said. As the city cleared trails and re-opened amenities like playgrounds, they posted messages on the city’s website and used the media. But the key to public messaging was working with community organizations, like church groups, to pass information along to city residents.

The City is now building redundancies into systems and creating more back-up services. One big issue during the storm was fuel, Quinn said. While staff had fueled up machinery and vehicles prior to the storm arriving, when they needed to be refueled there were issues because the main fuel depot did not have a back-up generator on site.

Quinn said the City has learned lessons from the experience of Fiona and has already begun to prepare for the next storm. “We’re building new infrastructure and making it more resilient so that it can stand up to higher winds,” he said. The City also purchased new equipment that can be used for cleaning up trees, but can also be adapted for other day-to-day uses like grading trails.

Recommendations 

• Create memorandums of understanding with local organizations and groups on what resources and assistance they can offer during and after storms (like communications help), but be sure to review yearly to keep things current.
• Ensure communication strategies that relay critical safety messages to residents as well as the closure or opening of park amenities like trails and playgrounds include methods of communication that work if the power is out, such as physically posted messages and leveraging community organization networks.
• Build redundancy into systems (e.g, generators) and ensure you have enough fuel to operate machinery for tree removals and trail clearing even if fuel pumps are down due to sustained power outages.