St. Pierre's Emergency Measures Organization team held a meeting last week to inform residents of their community about their emergency plan following the test of their newly refurbished warning siren. 

Blair Fallis is the emergency coordinator for the Village of St. Pierre and he says the meeting went quite well adding about 35 people were in attendance noting a number of them stepped up to the plate and joined the community's EMO team.  

"We had two guest speakers, one was the Disaster Management Coordinator for Manitoba Hydro and then we had Shelley Napier who represents Napier Consulting. She actually spoke to the crowd about volunteerism and we managed to get ten more people step up to volunteer and join our EMO team here in St. Pierre."

Fallis says one of the main topics they touched on was personal disaster plans. He adds they've actually put together a guidebook for residents that outlines which items you should put together in an emergency kit that could last you up to 72 hours if needed. He adds they're working on various communication aspects of their emergency plan as well. 

"We're putting together a number of different social media outputs as well as coordination with radio for getting the word out. If an evacuation of part of the public has to take place, we would have people going door to door and then our gathering spot is the rec centre in St. Pierre."

Fallis notes there was one question that came up a lot amongst the residents at the meeting.

"One of the main questions was, 'when would that siren go off?' One of the keys is a disaster that would involve a good portion of the community. So one of the major ones is a tornado warning." 

He adds in the event of severe forest fires or major flooding, the siren could also be used if evacuation was required. 

Read More: St. Pierre To Test Emergency Siren