Public Offers Feedback in Wake of Hurricane Juan

EMERGENCY MEASURES ORGANIZATION--Public Offers Feedback in Wake of Hurricane Juan

Nova Scotians have offered the Emergency Measures Organization (EMO) feedback on what public and private sector emergency providers did well, and areas that needed improvement, during the days immediately following Hurricane Juan.

"Like the debriefing, the public's feedback gives emergency response organizations an opportunity to see what was done right and identify areas that can be improved," said Ernest Fage, Minister responsible for the Emergency Measures Act. "As I have said in the past, I am proud of this province's response to the hurricane. I think we did very well. No matter how good a response is, however, there are always lessons to be learned."

On Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2003, EMO invited the public's comments on two reports. One summarized the emergency response to the hurricane that devastated large parts of Nova Scotia on Sept. 29, 2003. The second was a verbatim transcript of a post-Juan debriefing session involving government and private sector agencies affiliated with EMO.

Twenty-seven people provided comments via telephone, e-mail or mail.

Many offered sometimes extensive personal accounts about everything from Nova Scotia Power's handling of service outages to more generalized views on hurricane warning and preparedness systems.

A summary of the comments can be found on the website at www.gov.ns.ca/emo .