Richmond County staff developing vulnerable persons registry for emergency response

Cape Breton's Richmond County is working on creating a vulnerable persons registry to help look after residents affected by increasingly frequent and severe storms.

Warden Amanda Mombourquette said county staff are gathering information and will be making recommendations to council soon on how a registry could work.

She said Hurricane Fiona in 2022 and a heavy snow storm this February drove home the urgent need to come up with a way to help those living rough or others at home who need some assistance.

"We're feeling very strongly that we've got a gap in our emergency management planning for our most vulnerable citizens," Mombourquette said.

Halifax launched a registry last year. Vulnerable residents who don't have round-the-clock support can sign up and will be contacted by the municipality during emergencies such as lengthy power outages to make sure they're OK. The program is expected to cost $280,531 over four years.

Last year, Liberal MLA Lorelei Nicoll introduced a private member's bill to create a provincewide registry, but it did not proceed.

Kings County registry working well: co-ordinator

Kings County in the Annapolis Valley has had a registry since 2019.

It has about 50 people on the list and has been used several times, but it does not include people living rough or homeless, regional emergency management co-ordinator Dan Stovel said.

The Kings County registry keeps track of people living at home who do not have 24-hour support or who need electricity for life-support, such as oxygen or dialysis, and costs nothing more than the co-ordinator's salary.

"It's well within my scope of work right now," Stovel said. "It works well. The ongoing issue is getting the information out to the public."

Kings County's registry is voluntary, but many older people don't use computers or email, so part of Stovel's job is community outreach.

"I'm very active ... because it's not just a matter of having it on the website but actually reaching out to the public, and I did 35 sessions across Kings County last year, getting brochures into public hands."

Stovel said in an emergency, he can generate a list of names and addresses within minutes and get it to RCMP and the local fire department, so first responders can get to people who need help quickly.

Christine Porter, executive director of the Ally Centre of Cape Breton and an advocate for vulnerable people in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, has been calling on CBRM to create a registry, but so far the municipality has resisted that suggestion.

Mombourquette said it's not yet clear how a registry could work in Richmond County, but staff are reaching out to first responders and community service providers to determine who could respond when needed.

"I really honestly don't know what that's going to look like yet, or even if organizations would have the capacity to participate, but it's certainly not something the municipality can undertake alone," she said.

The registry will have to be voluntary and will have to protect people's privacy, the warden said, but it will also have to have some financial or human resources attached to it.

"There's no point in us having a list if we can't do anything with it when the need arises," she said.

A launch date has not been set yet and will depend on staff recommendations, but getting the registry up and running is a priority.

"From my perspective and I'm sure from many people's, if it was in place tomorrow, that wouldn't be soon enough," Mombourquette said.