The quick response from last Thursdays tornado in Durham is getting high praise from Emergency Management Ontario.
Field Officer Steve Beatty was at Mondays West Grey Council meeting to commend the work done by the Municipality.
Beatty says the leadership at the municipal level was complimentary.
He says the partnership with those in responding to the emergency and the overall teamwork was evident during Thursdays storm.
Beatty notes that the Municipality had a plan and procedures in place, people that communicated well, and had been trained to respond to these kinds of emergencies.
He says staff went through a training exercise this past April where the scenario involved a tornado.
However Beatty says he has not experienced an emergency where there haven’t been communication problems.
He says that is why communities have an emergency management program where there is training and exercises to ensure these issues don’t happen again..
Beatty says after every emergency the E-M-O does a critique of the response..
He says this would be the time to look at the plan and the procedures and make some changes.
Thursdays tornado caused 7.5 to 9 million dollars in damages and killed 11-year-old Owen McPherson from Ayton who was at a day camp at the conservation area.