Emergency Services in Richmond Hill

Brenda Hogg, Regional and Local Councillor
Town of Richmond Hill

With public concern rising over the management of emergency services, it may be helpful to know that Richmond Hill has an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) which incorporates all emergency service areas and community leaders in assigned roles. In an emergency of Town–wide proportions, this would be the inner sanctum. Central to the room is a large round table surrounded by individual work and communication centres assigned to each leader for emergency response. Community services, transit, public health, police, shelter, ambulance, and fire are all represented. Keeping the public informed would be the role of the Mayor, coordination of the services is the responsibility of the Town’s Chief Administrative Office.

The Town has established an extensive and comprehensive Community Emergency Management Program and is now working towards various levels of certification as required by the Emergency Management Act. Recently Richmond Hill was certified to the Essential Level which requires that the Town implement a Hazardous Incident and Risk Assessment (HIRA) to identify some of the challenges for our area including technological and function failures due to power outages, events relating to hazardous materials accidents, and weather related problems.

In November 2004, the Town’s emergency service partners engaged in a training exercise where they practiced managing what is known in the business as a ‘hazmat (hazardous material) spill/train accident’.

The consultant that conducted the training indicated that we were in a good position to handle an emergency but improvements will be implemented over the next two years.

This fall, a joint exercise with other municipalities and the Region will be undertaken to ensure that we have the communications processes in place to handle multi–jurisdictional events. Basic Emergency Management for in–house staff and training for our elected officials in Emergency Plan operations is on–going.

Each municipality must be prepared to handle a local emergency. When an event is of significant proportion or if two or more municipalities are involved, then the Regional Plan will take the lead. Other agencies in a municipal or regional event include the offices of Emergency Management Ontario. Should a "Hurricane Katrina" occur in Ontario, the Province would take the lead role. If a pandemic emergency were to occur such as SARS and multiple borders were crossed, then the Province and the Region would take a lead role. But if a Hazmat incident were to occur at Yonge and Major Mackenzie, then the Town would take a lead role.

Brenda