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www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 58 No. 03
Farrow St. mail remains undelivered Cameron Orr Mail service to Farrow Street continues to be stopped and one resident has taken the issue to town council. Bill Dawson provided a background to councillors at the January 7 meeting of what has happened, and urged them to use all the force they have as a body to ensure mail delivery resumes. Through 2012 mail service was stopped to the street twice, once in the spring and again in November, stoppage which continues today. “Both mail stoppages have caused inconveniences to all the residents living on Farrow Street,” said Dawson. He referred in particular to the troubles of his neighbour who has to take a taxiDart downtown to get her mail from the Post Office directly. Depending on how much snow there is even that can prove a challenging excursion, he explained. He said a potential solution suggested by a Canada Post supervisor based in Terrace is to install a community mailbox at the end of the street. “The solution is unacceptable. The post office is supposed to deliver the mail to my home. My taxes pay for this service,” said Dawson. Spokesperson for Canada Post Eugene Knapik couldn’t speak to any specific offers such as a community mailbox — which he said has been a solution in other cases — but did say that there was not much change on Canada Post’s position since the Sentinel last spoke with him in December. “We’re still not delivering, we haven’t got a resolution as of yet,” he said. “We still see a risk for our employee and we can’t take the risk that our employee is going to be attacked by this dog.” He said based on the long history that mail carriers have had being chased by this dog, maintaining mail delivery would be “irresponsible” for the carrier’s safety. In response to Dawson’s presentation to council, Mario Feldhoff moved that the District of Kitimat enforce its animal control bylaws and that if they are not strong enough to allow mail delivery to resume that they be modified to achieve that end. “It’s clearly unacceptable to the residents of Farrow Street not to receive their mail,” he said. Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Warren Waycheshen, who put extensive work into this file over the holidays, said that it’s a challenging issue because there is only limited jurisdiction each side has on this matter. Continued on page 2
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
1.34 INCLUDES TAX
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Cadets on parade are inspected by commanding officer Captain Rob Buller. The Sea Cadets are officially back and new and returning recruits gathered last Tuesday in their hall on Konigus Avenue. For more on the return of the Cadets, see page 8.
Better prepared the second time Cameron Orr The January 5 earthquake off Alaska was another test of Kitimat’s emergency preparedness, and Fire Chief Trent Bossence said he definitely saw improvements compared to the October 27 earthquake in 2012. “Comparatively it went well,” said Bossence. “There’s lots of different circumstances with this one but the whole big picture of what we were trying to accomplish went very smoothly.” He said he’s happy with the speed with which information was spread into the public. He points to new channels such as Twitter and Facebook that allowed them to get messages out. He’s referring to the Kitimat Economic Development Office’s Twitter feed (@KitimatEDO) and its newly created Facebook page. The official website for Kitimat, Kitimat.ca, was also updated with tsu-
nami news. These events showed Bossence that their short term goals were being met, goals which were set after the October 2012 earthquake near Haida Gwaii. In that case he had said communication was an issue to work on. Fewer members of the public called the fire department this time and he also credits the province for stepping up their game in comparison. “Information is critical for us,” he said. “We don’t make a decision until we get that accurate information we need.” That said, there is still work to do provincially. “The information was still delayed compared to the Alaska site but a lot quicker than what it was.” He’s referring to the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre. He is also happy with the coordination the Emergency Operations Centre, which activates in events such as earth-
quakes, had with industry and Kitamaat Village. A call to the head of the Haisla Volunteer Fire Department was not immediately returned. Volunteers were evacuating the village the morning of the earthquake in the hour before the cancellation of the tsunami warning. A debriefing of emergency personnel in Kitimat has already taken place to bring up ideas for further improvement. “There’s a lot of long term stuff that needs to happen,” said Bossence, such as an overall review of Kitimat’s emergency plan. Shortly after 1 a.m. on January 5 a 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit off the southern coast of Alaska. The shaking could be felt in Kitimat and it sparked a tsunami warning for the B.C. coast, however waves only reaching half a foot high were recorded. The tsunami warning was cancelled a little after 3 a.m. that morning.
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Training plan gets released ... page 3