The city of Victoria asks crisis response volunteers

Key takeaways: 

• Volunteers give crisis assistance to evacuees in nearly any type of difficulty.
• Various volunteers currently reacting to the rural flood emergency are the role of the City of Victoria’s crisis assistance services crew, for which the city is hiring.

Victoria, BC, seeks for some emergency assistance crew: 

The City of Victoria is presently selecting volunteers for its crisis assistance services crew to support when disasters — both big and small — hit.

Tanya Patterson, the city’s emergency program coordinator, states these volunteers give aid to evacuees in nearly every kind of emergency.

“In the city of Victoria, the most regular activity is responding to residential fires, whether it’s a house fire or a residential fire and people are evacuated and … require food, shelter, clothing,” Patterson stated. Source – cbc.ca

The volunteers are members of a rural program backed by Emergency Management B.C. Several of those reacting to the regional flood emergency is part of a similar program, states Patterson.

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Even though volunteers may be based in Victoria, she states several have moved elsewhere to back out with different dangers.

“Our emergency assistance support volunteers did help out in the Okanagan in 2017 and 2018 and this past summer for the wildfires, as well as helping out with the recent flooding across the region. But they can say no — it’s just based on their availability,” she stated.  Source – cbc.ca

Typically, volunteers can anticipate gathering once a month for meetings and training concourses as well as several weekends a year for more intricate training sessions.

“We do training and exercises where we may go and set up a mock reception centre or group lodging centre in a community centre,” Patterson stated.  Source – cbc.ca