'Overwhelmingly confusing': Mixed reviews from wildfire victims to HRM report

The first of several reports on the Halifax wildfires that destroyed 151 homes is garnering mixed reviews from some of the victims.

The 138 page report was added to the regional council agenda late Friday afternoon.

Among other things, the report lays out weaknesses in the fire response.

“As the municipality has grown, the maturity of the Emergency Management function has not kept pace and has remained underfunded and under-resourced,” it reads.

The area councillor for District 13, Hammonds Plains - St. Margaret's, says problems ran much deeper.

“The Incident Command System didn't work. Communications, broken. We didn't have the people on the ground - we didn't even have the procurement system set-up,” Pam Lovelace told CTV News Monday.

“We still need the provincial report, and their After Action Report, and I'm still waiting for Halifax Fire and Emergency to provide that Incident Issue Command of what actually took place, when,” said Lovelace.

“The timeline that we have now is a great overview of how the municipality responded, but we also know the provincial government doesn't have the water suppression tools, we don't have the water bombers. We didn't have that on Sunday night, and we needed it,”

At the peak of the fire, more than 16,000 residents were forced to evacuate, and some were prohibited from returning home for more than two weeks.

151 homes were destroyed, along with Tammy MacKay’s moulding manufacturing company.

The report, she says, missed the mark.

"I found it overwhelmingly confusing,” said MacKay.

"It's just a lot of bureaucracy, and just made things more complicated. I didn't see anything in there that's really helpful to me,” she said.

"I think, by the time they do all the things they want to implement, it'll be 10 years down the road. This is not a quick fix or anything, and it's certainly not helping the business owners that were affected by this catastrophe."

MacKay says the rebuilding process is underway, but happening slowly.

"Our building is moving forward, so we're getting excited about that,” she said.

“We are still operating. Of course, we're not manufacturing, and we're waiting to see how the province is going to come through for us on this."

"We're trying to get up and running when I could easily retire right now, but we're trying to do the right thing by the province, and we're not getting a lot of support,” she added.

The rebuilding process is slow, too, for Andrew Vey, who also lost his home, but he's satisfied it will be rebuilt and the family will return.

“The kids are coping, incredibly resilient,” Vey told CTV News Monday.

He says the report does acknowledge an elephant in the room: the population boom in HRM in recent years.

"I think they've started identifying a lot of the issues, particularly talking about the expansion within HRM, and the growth that we've experienced and seen in the last few years,” said Vey.

“One of the things I noticed in there as well is maybe some of the policies are bit outdated.”

“It's one of those hard things to maintain and stay on top of until something happens, and then you realize, 'Maybe we need to go back and revisit these for better practices going forward.'”

Lovelace says the issue can be traced back to city hall.

"It's not that our equipment hasn't kept up, it's that it hasn't been a priority for Regional Council,” she said.

“The community has been calling for years for evacuation planning, for dry hydrants, for better communication with our Emergency Management Office, but the council previously hasn't supported that. This is the first time the municipality has a Community Safety Office, and that opened on April first of this year. So, we are seeing more attention toward community and emergency services, but we need a much bigger look at what this municipality needs,” she said.

“We're the size of Prince Edward Island, it's time to resource emergency service and emergency management adequately.”

Vey, who’d only lived in the area for about a year before fire destroyed the family house, says his family is focussing on the future.

“My wife and I are looking forward to a new build down the road,” he said.

“It will be nice to get back to our roots and home again.”

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