Brampton – The City of Brampton is supporting residents in building preparedness habits this Emergency Preparedness Week and all year long. Emergency Preparedness Week runs May 7-13 with the theme this year being “Build Preparedness Habits”. Everyone has a role to play in an emergency. Emergency Preparedness Week is an opportunity for you to prepare to protect yourself, your family and our community during an emergency.
Brampton Fire and Emergency Services is reminding residents and business owners on ways we can all contribute to creating a healthy, resilient community with the following tips.
Build an Emergency Kit
Emergency kits prepare you and your family to be self-sufficient for at least 72 hours in the event of an emergency until further support is available. Assemble your flood emergency home kits to include:
• Food
• Water
• Extra set of car and house keys
• Small amount of cash
• Sleeping bag or warm blankets
• Toiletries
• First aid kit
• Medicines
• Supplies for pets
The City of Brampton Emergency Management Office will be at Bramalea City Centre Mall on Saturday, May 6 from 9 am to 2 pm, with the Canadian Red Cross to explain how to prepare for an emergency.
Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW) runs May 15 – 19. As Brampton is home to nearly 90,000 businesses, the Brampton Emergency Management Office is highlighting ways to protect your livelihood. The theme of BCAW is “Embracing the Challenge of Resilience.”
Staying resilient, building resilience and maintaining resilience are top priorities for organizations following the challenges that arose as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Have a Business Continuity Plan
Emergencies can happen any time and it is impossible to avoid disruptions. Creating a business continuity plan will help your business continue to operate. The Rogers outage in July 2022 lasted more than 12 grueling hours without internet, phone, Banking ATMs, Credit card and debit capabilities for millions of people and businesses. This resulted in service disruptions in Brampton and across the entire country.
Many businesses and critical services were inoperable due to the outage. Having business continuity plans in place that address the loss of technology would lessen the impact and help maintain critical services should such an event occur again.
For more information on how to assess and reduce the risks and prepare proactively for a possible emergency click here. “We all have a role to play in preparing ourselves for the unexpected. This means when the unthinkable happens the City’s team is ready and can work together to get back on track.,” said Rick Bernard, Manager Emergency Management Office. “We also encourage everyone to take the time over the coming weeks to think about how you can prepare yourself, your family, your community and your business for emergencies. We are stronger together.”