StormReady is a project involving the City of Steinbach, Manitoba Emergency Measures Organization, and Environment Canada to help better prepare our community in case of severe weather. The program is based on one that has been used in the US since 1999 and has over 1400 counties / communities that are already certified. Steinbach will be the first city in Canada to be certified as a pilot project
for “StormReady.”
There are certain guidelines that must be met to obtain certification and one of them is to have community weather spotters that can relay reports to Environment Canada and the local media as a way to warn our residents. Other criteria are to have a 24-hour “Warning Point” and an Emergency Operations Centre in our community. The City has installed Weather Radios in all City owned public access buildings to meet another guideline of being StormReady. The community weather spotters could be alerted by Weather Radio, text message, or phone and will have procedures to track the storm and report what they see to Emergency Responders, the Emergency Operations Centre, local media and Environment Canada should the storm look to be of danger to our community. The City has guidelines to follow in our Emergency Plans for Severe Weather and the StormReady program will definitely enhance our plan. Steinbach's StormReady team are always looking for more volunteers to come forward to assist with the StormReady program. If you are interested, please contact the City at (204) 326-9877 or visit www.steinbach.ca for more information. The most instrumental organizations and people involved in getting the project going were Manitoba EMO, Environment Canada, City Council and City of Steinbach Support staff, the Rest Haven staff and the volunteers who willingly gave of their own time to make Steinbach’s StormReady certification possible.
