N.S. minister blames municipalities for delay in emergency alert in last week’s flood

HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia government is criticizing municipalities for their decision not to request an emergency alert during flooding last week that killed a 13-year-old boy and caused extensive damage.

In a letter to mayors and wardens sent Tuesday, John Lohr, minister of municipal affairs, said that normally alerts, which are sent to wireless devices, televisions and radios, must come from the municipalities because they are best positioned to decide how messages are worded.

However, Lohr said as more than 100 millimetres of rain fell in a few hours on the western and central regions on Thursday, the province had to take the “extremely unusual step” of issuing an alert on its own at 8:30 p.m.

That was three hours after reports describing submerged, impassable roads and people having to flee their homes were coming in from first responders, and one hour after RCMP received a call about a youth disappearing in a drainage ditch in Wolfville, N.S.

Lohr says in his letter to the municipalities that as the province works on legislation to modernize the emergency alert system, he’s expecting local authorities “to be more vigilant in issuing alerts.”

Zach Churchill, the leader of the Liberal Opposition party, said in an interview the Progressive Conservative government has been too slow to help create a modern ready alert system, and hasn’t provided sufficient funding for training and support for local emergency officials.

“It’s really easy for the government to blame others, it’s harder to take responsibility. This needs to be a provincial responsibility,” he said.

“This is a weather event going across numerous municipalities … I think it’s time we look at having a centralized approach to issuing these alerts.”

Recordings of radio calls made Thursday evening by the fire department of Kings County, which includes Wolfville, indicate that residents were calling in about extreme flooding around 5:30 p.m., describing rescues around the region.

The Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office said in an email that Lohr — who lives in one of the communities hit by last week’s storm — had called the provincial co-ordination centre at 7:15 p.m. requesting officials add staffing to the centre, which had been operating with a single duty manager. A spokeswoman for the office said the centre made the decision to issue an alert at 8:30 p.m., “based on information (EMO staff) were receiving from our partners and the alert was sent out within minutes.”

In his letter, Lohr noted there is legislation in progress that will create a “modernized” emergency alert system, consultations for which will take place over the summer.

He said the province is in the process of streamlining the system to allow all municipal police forces, fire services and other first responders to issue alerts. The new model, he said, won’t require alerts to be reviewed by the provincial emergency management office before they are issued to the public.

Meanwhile, he said the provincial EMO team won’t hesitate to send out their own alerts if municipalities don’t act.

The chief administrative officers of Wolfville and Kentville and the mayors of Digby, West Hants and Kings County — some of the larger municipalities affected — were unavailable for comment on Tuesday.

A recent report on the July 21-22, 2023, flash floods in Nova Scotia that resulted in the deaths of three children and one adult found the municipality of West Hants faced a number of challenges transmitting timely emergency alerts to the public.

The Emergency Management Office sought feedback from municipalities and first responders on the alert ready system in the aftermath of the deaths, and in October last year published a summary of findings.

The document, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, says last fall most municipalities “did not express a desire to be authorized to directly issue public alerts, although some partners were receptive to issuing directly if there was proper training and specific guidelines.”

Under the current system, the chief administrative officer or their designate in a municipality have authority to issue an alert.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 16, 2024.

Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press