FALL RIVER: Officials from HRM Fire, N.S. Power, Bell, Canadian Red Cross, N.S. EMO, and others took questions from the three reporters registered for the briefing update on Sept. 25.
The Laker News’ Pat Healey was on the call and had the chance to ask four questions.
CBC’S Jean Laroche and The Cape Breton Post’s Ian Nathanson were the other reporters registered for the briefing to ask questions.
Erica Fleck, Assistant Chief, Emergency Management, Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, was asked about the roadside cleanup of branches and when residents can expect the debris to be picked up.
She said a PSA would be forthcoming with the locations of the sites where residents can drop off the brush debris.
Shortly after the briefing, that information landed in our inbox.
Municipally owned trees that fall on private property are being removed by the municipality. If a tree has fallen in the right of way and is blocking or impeding traffic, a sidewalk, or a bike lane – residents should call 311. For your own safety, residents are reminded to not remove trees in the right of way on their own accord.
Trees located on private property are the sole responsibility of the homeowner. The municipality is not responsible for removing brush and debris from private property.
From Wednesday, September 28 to Wednesday, October 5, there will be a total of eight short-term debris drop-offs at the following locations from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.:
- 2 Lyle Street, Dartmouth
- 144 Thornhill Drive, Dartmouth
- 26 Thomas Raddall Drive, Halifax
- 50 Cheviot Hill, Porters Lake
- Kinsac Ballfield (near 1703 Beaver Bank Road), Beaver Bank
- Sheet Harbour Community Centre, 183 Pool Rd, Sheet Harbour
- Lake Charlotte Boat Launch, 11475 Highway 7, Lake Charlotte
- Peace Park, 67 Park Road, Musquodoboit Harbour
There is no charge for using this service. Residents will be responsible for delivering and unloading all materials at these sites at their own risk. Note: bags, construction debris or other waste will not be accepted at these locations.
Residents are also asked to report downed municipal signs, crosswalk lights and street lights to 311.
We asked Matt Drover, Storm lead with Nova Scotia Power, about streets in Fall River and Sackville area, there are some that have power in the neighborhood and ones that don’t. How is progress coming along to restore those without power and why would this happen?
Drover: As I mentioned before, today is a big day for us from a damage assessment standpoint. We are focused on the biggest power lines that have been affected. So those that feed the most customers and some locations the way that geography works, there may be neighbors that get on before the others.
“But rest assured, we do have a significant amount of crews in the Fall River area that will be focusing on those outages and making sure that they’re restored as quickly as possible.”
We also asked Drover on whether residents should be calling the outage line if they’re not on the map and are out. He encouraged them to do so.
Drover: “Absolutely. Sometimes when people call in, that may occur (outage not getting put on the map). It is a rare occurrence, but if it does happen, please call back and log your outage again.
“You can also post your outage on our outage map. So if you go to our external outage map, there’s information there where you can post your outage and that’ll get up on the map as well. But if you’re not showing, please call us and let us know.”
In our last question, Fleck was asked why no comfort centers were setup in Fall River or Wellington area. The nearest for residents in this area are at Beaver Bank Kinsac Community Centre and Acadia Hall in Lower Sackville.
Her response was: “Because we had large pockets of people with power in Fall River, we had to prioritize the comfort centers where the greatest power outages we had for the longest periods, and with the amount of staffing and volunteers that we had at the time.
“We continue to adjust those multiple times a day.”
