Gillies Township debriefs storm response as northwestern Ontario braces for more winter weather

As northwestern Ontario braces for another potentially harsh weather week, officials in the township of Gillies, Ont., are coming up with new storm contingency plans after power in the community was knocked out for days last week.

A weather system rolled through northwestern Ontario during the middle of last week. Soon powerful wind gusts and wet, heavy snow created a recipe for disaster.

"I was actually pleasantly surprised that so many people were self-sufficient," said Wendy Wright, Reeve of the Township of Gillies.

"We always are asking people to have 72-hour emergency kits, that kind of thing at home. But we're quite lucky that the temperature was mild. If this had been -30 C with this going on, it would have been quite a different story," she said.

Township council will be holding a regularly scheduled meeting Monday night, and Wright said the storm and outage response will be debriefed.

She said contingency plans need to be created for scenarios where outages happen in even harsher and much colder weather.

The outage prompted township officials to organize volunteers and the volunteer fire department to go door-to-door, making sure people were safe and had any supplies they needed. A state of emergency was also declared Friday, which has since been lifted.

"That's just too long for people, so luckily everyone was safe," said Wright.

Wright said all residents were checked on Friday, as volunteers also struggled to get around on the rural roads.

Another barrier in the storm was the loss of cellular reception, further isolating some community members.

"Not that many people have landlines anymore, right. I have one here. The fire chief has one … Maybe more people will get one now," said Wright.

Wright said power outages are definitely not unusual in the rural community, which is located about 35 kilometres west of Thunder Bay, but she said this outage was the longest she's seen during her tenure as township reeve.

The weather is also only becoming more volatile as the climate changes, which is forcing many municipalities to rethink their responses to preparedness to significant weather events.

In fact, it's possible that harsh weather might not be over for the winter just yet.