By Bob Bruton, Barrie Examiner
Barrie will host a climate change conference next month designed to help municipalities deal with Mother Nature.
‘Building Municipal Resiliency in Central Ontario’ will be held May 21; it will take participants through the science of climate change, what local governments can do, risk mitigation, emergency management, private sector practices and research, leading-edge case studies and how to plan for changing weather.
“The flooding in Calgary, Toronto, and Burlington in the last two years has put all cities on notice that we can’t stick our heads in the sand,” said Mayor Jeff Lehman. “We have to prepare for more situations like that. Government’s most important job is to protect people and property, which is why this conference has emergency management as the other one of the two areas of focus.
“There’s no denying the trends, particularly in terms of rainfall, and the number of days of ice cover on the lake.”
Barrie residents can’t help but notice the effects of climate change, and severe weather.
Just more than a year ago the tornado which struck Angus also did considerable damage to the city’s south-end.
This past winter more than 200 Barrie homes had their water services frozen, along with 30 businesses. In terms of average temperatures, it was Barrie’s coldest February in more than 80 years.
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