Flu fears Health officials say number of H1N1 deaths understates true toll. Page 7 Chopped champ Former Nanaimo chef wins televised cook-off. Page 11 Hitting the road Ryan McMahon performs before leaving on tour. Page 4
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VOL. 25, NO. 85
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Gabriola Island residents protest ferry reductions
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ISLAND TRUST says ferry cuts hurt economy. BY KaRL YU ThE NEwS BULLETiN
CHRIS BUSH/THe NewS BUlleTIN
Children from Little Ferns Daycare are led to the playground behind John Barsby Secondary School by Janelle Fortin, early childhood educator, after putting in a half hour practising an emergency evacuation Wednesday morning.
City puts dams and evacuation warning system to test BY CHRIS BUSH ThE NEwS BULLETiN
The City of Nanaimo was busy testing its new evacuation warning system last week and the structural integrity of the Colliery dams. The evacuation warning system was put through its paces Wednesday, starting at about 10:20 a.m. when the city activated its telephone call alert system. The system links to households in Harewood that would be in the flood region should the dams at Colliery Park fail due to an extreme
weather or seismic event and alerts residents to run for high ground. “It phoned people in the inundation zone below Colliery dams and advised them that we were running a test,” said Karen Lindsay, Nanaimo emergency services coordinator. “It also sent an e-mail to people if they chose that option of communication.” The call-out system is backed up by an audible warning system, which verbally announces the nature of the emergency, followed by a three-minute wailing tone similar to the sound of an air raid siren.
The $60,000 system, located in the John Barsby Secondary School grounds, projects the warning from two banks of three horn-loaded speakers arrayed so the warning siren can be heard over a 1.6-kilometre radius covering the flood inundation area. The full-volume test is what people would hear in the event the dams were likely to fail. The system can be activated manually on site or remotely and will be tested monthly. “The difference between this test and the monthly
tests that are going to occur, is that the monthly tests are going to be a 30-second, 50-per cent volume test and that’s just for us to make sure all of our programs are working and the mechanics and the procedures we set up are working,” Lindsay said. “We wanted do this three-minute test to ensure that everything we put in place was working and functional.” John Barsby Secondary School, which is in the inundation zone, took the opportunity to practise a full evacuation. u See ‘GEOPHYSICISTS’ /4
About 400 people rallied on Gabriola Island Saturday, protesting impending ferry service cuts, which they say will adversely affect the community. A recent report by Gabriola’s transportation commission and ferry advisory committee estimated that the island’s economy could see an annual loss of $5.7 million and 176 jobs due to the the proposed early-morning and latenight sailing cuts set for April. “The province did not do any socio-economic impact analysis before they cancelled the sailings and they should have,” said Sheila Malcolmson, Island Trust council chairwoman. “If they care about the economy and they care about communities and working families, they would’ve done that work themselves.” Kathy Ramsey, a member of the B.C. Marine Highway group, said
residents are frustrated because the ferry is an integral part of life on Gabriola Island. “I have a business (Gabriola Artworks) on the island so I rely on the ferry, whether I’m on it, whether my goods are on it or whether my customers are on it,” Ramsey said. Ever since the ferry cuts were announced by Minister of Transportation Todd Stone and B.C. Ferries chief executive officer Mike Corrigan in November, island residents have expressed concern about the loss of late-night ferry service. “Our school system is designed around the fact that our 200 high school students go to Nanaimo, so with these ferry cuts it will mean that every high school student on the island has to be back at the ferry by 8:30 p.m. ... they can’t do any extracurricular activites,” Ramsey said. Stone told the News Bulletin during a visit to Nanaimo in late November that specific sailing cuts were up for discussion. A series of forums for affected communities was held during December. u See ‘FERRY’ /5
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