Be prepared: Winnipeggers should plan ahead for emergencies, experts say

It's Emergency Preparedness Week, and local experts are reminding Winnipeggers to plan ahead.

It’s Emergency Preparedness Week, and local experts are reminding Winnipeggers to plan ahead.

Emergency consultant Shelley Napier told 680 CJOB’s The Start that people often expect that authorities or others will have everything set up if and when an emergency occurs, but that’s not always the case.

“As a whole, I think that we just go through day-to-day life and think somebody else takes care of this stuff,” Napier said.

“In reality, we have to start first at the individual level to take care of any emergency that happens because we’re going to be on the front line of it.”

Napier said people often don’t think about emergency planning unless they’ve already lived through a crisis situation and are more likely to be prepared — such as residents of Elie, Man., who experienced Canada’s strongest recorded tornado in 2007.

“Certainly those people who went through that understand how awful it was and how devastating … so when they get weather warnings, they take them very seriously.”

Napier said she encourages people to plan ahead with a 72-hour kit, containing everything they and their family members might need — medications, first aid kits, changes of clothing — if there’s a sudden need to evacuate the home.

“If you’re a young family with little children, you’re going to have to take different things with you. It’s going to be more time-consuming to evacuate, so the more preparedness you can do ahead of the event (the better).”