Post May long-weekend storm talk continues in Carleton Place – lots of questions

Carleton Place council reviewed the town’s response to the May long-weekend storm this week.

Pascal Meurnier, director of protective services, outlined what went well and what needed improvement.

That sparked some discussion.

Councillor Linda Seccaspina asked why the community response volunteers weren’t called out when it all started.

She added the number of calls she handled herself on the first night of the outage was horrendous.

The committee voted to accept the report as information.

They also discussed the power outages following the storm and how it revealed serious emergency power shortages in some of Carleton Place’s municipal facilities.

After the Derecho storm, it was discovered that back-up generators at the arena couldn’t power the elevator or the HVAC system. The units at the fire hall couldn’t power fire truck electronics, and the town hall’s phone and IT systems weren’t connected to emergency power at all.

A proposal was brought forward to have a consultant review the town’s emergency power generator needs of those three buildings at a cost of just over $24,000.

After some discussion, the committee approved the plan and added the Carambeck community center to the study, as well as providing leeway for any cost increases.