Anytime city staff decide not to host flood evacuees of northern communities, council will be told.
Acting Fire Chief Greg Hankkio is with the Municipal Emergency Control Group, and points out sometimes decisions have to be made quickly, without time allowed to find out city council’s direction.
“Similar to 2011, as a control group, we had to make a decision within 45 minutes. However, if there’s an anticipated flood problem in the James Bay area, we may have weeks to make that decision,” says Hankkio.
However, when asked by Councillor Peng You if bringing evacuees to Thunder Bay costs taxpayers, he said the short answer is “no”. The Acting Chief added there is an agreement with the federal government to recover any costs, and in fact, he points out the city can make money, “There’s a revenue generation piece that goes along with that, to the tune of about 10% of the cost of the evacuation.”
Monday night’s council meeting saw a motion passed that would see council notified if the Municipal Emergency Control Group decided not to bring evacuees here. Some councillors have expressed concern they weren’t involved in recent decision making not to bring evacuees to Thunder Bay.
