Perth County releases new winter severe weather guide

As a result of lessons learned from the major winter storm that closed every Perth County road for three days over the Christmas weekend last year, the county has launched a new winter severe weather guide that includes important information about staying safe and informed during severe winter storms .

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Having seen several severe winter weather events over the past couple of years, Perth County officials released this guide to make sure residents and visitors have the necessary knowledge needed to stay safe, including what types of winter weather to prepare for, definitions and weather terminology, and links on where to find accurate road and weather information.

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“This was one of the items that came out of the debrief from last year’s significant weather event,” Perth County community emergency management co-ordinator Rick Fraser said. “People were sort of looking for information. ‘What does a significant weather event mean? Where can I go to find information?’ People just wanted information on where to find things and what certain things meant. So rather than try to answer individual emails, which we were doing … one of those things we took away from that is how can we do things better?

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“Developing this guide gives us a platform for answering some of those questions. It’s not exhaustive, by any means, but it does give people an idea of ​​what things mean, how they can find information and how they can create their own (preparedness) kits for their cars and their homes.”

Fraser said last year’s winter storm was a wakeup call for many, especially to drivers who found themselves stranded on closed roads without emergency kits in their vehicles and, in some cases, without even having warm clothing to wear while they waited for rescue.

“What happened last year happened at the perfectly wrong time,” Fraser said. “It was the holiday season. Had it happened two weeks before or two weeks after, people would have adhered to the travel advisories and road closures. We had our reception centers in all of our municipalities and we had people who were stranded in those centers for, in a couple cases, days at a time because they chose to try to get out there and make it from A to B, which just wasn’t possible.

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“As a consequence, our emergency responders had to do something (to help those drivers) and our roads team had to be active when we could have stood them down for a little bit to (wait for safer conditions). People don’t realize that when you’re told to stay off the roads, it is for a definite reason. We’d love if people could adhere to that.”

The guide is available in both print and online at www.perthcounty.ca/en/living-here/community-preparedness-information.aspx. Hard copies of the guide are available free of charge at local municipal offices, including the Perth County courthouse in Stratford, the North Perth municipal office in Listowel, the Perth South municipal office in St. Pauls, the Perth East municipal office in Milverton, and the West Perth municipal office in Mitchell, as well as at the Stratford-Perth Archives in Stratford.

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