It appears the damage and cleanup from the summer windstorm has cost the City of Burnaby a pretty penny.
According to a financial committee report to be discussed Thursday night (Oct. 22), the cost to clean up the storm as of the end of September had hit $460,000.
The final cost won’t be known until the cleanup work is complete.
The report also noted the city could also recoup some of the costs through the province’s Disaster Recovery Fund.
The windstorm, which swept through on Aug. 29, downed trees and cut power to 50,000 customers in Burnaby.
The post-mortem on the storm also provided an assessment of the city’s infrastructure and response to the major event, pointing out both strengths and areas to improve.
Some of the strengths include the city found dispatch staff (engineering, fire and RCMP) worked well with additional backup staff to handle the “extraordinary” call volume and the emergency power for all key infrastructures and facilities worked as designed.
The exception was the Capitol Hill and Burnaby Mountain (backup) water pump stations where the power transfer process failed.
But areas to improve included the limited backup power available for traffic signals, the need for better communication and coordination between city staff and RCMP members on road closures, signal outage and barricade deployment, and a lack of a backup system for the city's computer data centres.
The report also noted a need for more timely communication and notification to the public on impacted city services and infrastructure.
City staff have put forward a total of nine items recommended to either study or change in the future.
“Overall, the city and RCMP had responded well and provided the community with the best possible service under an extreme weather condition,” the city’s deputy city manager Lambert Chu wrote in the report.
“Lessons have been learned on what needs to be improved to better prepare the city for future emergencies.”
The numbers:
· During the wind storm and the following two-week period, the city received approximately 1,000 calls for service in connection with fallen tree branches and downed trees. Typically, the weekly call volume for routine tree maintenance and requests is 75 to 100.
· For the RCMP, total calls for service from Aug. 29 to 31 was 625, while the average calls for service for a similar period is 500.
· During the first 12-hour period of the storm, the fire department responded to 136 calls for service; seven times the average call volume for a similar period. For the 48-hour period of Aug. 29 and 30, the department responded to a total of 248 calls, which was more than three times the average fire-related call volume for a similar period.
· During the storm event, all seven fire stations and the RCMP detachment building lost power for 36 to 48 hours.
