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Past Recipients

2018 Recipient – Emergency Preparedness Program: Perth County Emergency Management Municipal 511 Project

The goal of this project was to create a ‘Common Operating Picture’ for first responders when dealing with major events such as ice storms, blizzards and other severe weather that generally result in road closures, poor road conditions and other hazards that can potentially lead to life-threatening delays to emergency responses.

Perth County Emergency Services was one of the first organizations to adopt the Municipal 511 system to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of operations in dealing with both day-to-day and major incidents.

Municipal 511 is a cost-effective web-based service for managing and communicating current and future road work, restrictions and conditions. This meant adopting a faster, more nimble and responsive web-based system to replace the manual, traditional, rigid and inefficient system that was in place. This involved a modest financial investment that now allows municipal staff and emergency response agencies to acquire and/or share information simply by logging into a common website from their office, home, or mobile device. As a result, they are able to better coordinate their efforts, plan alternate routes, anticipate issues and challenges, and prepare accordingly to address an emergency incident that may emerge. As early adopters, Perth Emergency Services were also able to influence the enhancements and functionality of the system which will no doubt benefit future adopters of the Municipal 511 system.

2018 Recipient – Emergency Response Exercise: Ottawa Emergency Management Program – Ottawa 2017 C3 Exercise

From left to right: Mr. Michael Martin (Motorola Solutions Canada), Chief Superintendent Alison Jevons, Ms. Paola Parenti, Mr. Pierre Poirier, Fire Chief Ken Stuebing

The City of Ottawa Emergency Management Program planned a full-scale exercise in preparation for the significant planned events in celebration of Canada 150. With funding received from the Government of Canada’s Canadian Safety and Security Program, the Canadian Army Simulation Centre was contracted to develop and facilitate the full-scale exercise which came to be known as the ‘C3 Exercise’ which stands for “Cooperation, Coordination and Communication”.

The ‘C3 Exercise’ involved subject matter experts from seven municipalities to evaluate the various decision centres’ processes and operations: a first in Canada. The full-scale exercise was intended to validate and evaluate multiple functions at multiple sites. The exercise involved having players at multiple locations, utilizing plans, policies, procedures and training in responding to a simulated large-scale

emergency. With the exception of physical locations being exercised, all other messages, personnel and equipment movement was simulated.

Once the exercise was completed, an After-Action Report was produced and shared with all participating agencies. Several of the observations were turned into corrective actions, thereby leading to improved operational capability.