Earthquakes. Storms. Industrial disasters. Almost three quarters of North Shore residents say they are not fully prepared to face a crisis. In the wake of the recent catastrophic flooding on Sumas Prairie and in Merritt, the sudden wipeout of key highway transportation routes and landslide north of Pemberton that claimed at least four lives, we asked readers about their level of preparedness for a worst-case scenario.
North Shore News polled 915 readers and asked the question: How prepared are you for an emergency?
The poll ran from Nov. 16 to 23. Of the 915 votes, we can determine that 432 are from within the community.
Of local readers who responded, only 28 per cent said they are fully prepared, with extra food and supplies to last 72 hours.
The majority - almost 54 per cent - said they have some emergency supplies, but admitted they should probably do more. Almost 18 per cent of local readers responding admitted to not being prepared at all, should disaster strike.
The full results are as follows:
North Shore Emergency Management, the tri-municipial disaster preparedness and response agency, offers training and tips on what North Shore residents can do to be prepared for various kinds of foreseeable crises. They also recommend everyone download Alertable, a smartphone app that keeps residents informed up to the minute.
Results are based on an online study of adult North Shore News readers that are located in North Shore. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 3.23%, 19 times out of 20.
North Shore News uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
