Dietmann: Tornadoes, wildfires, and survival.Algonquin College students offer life-saving tips

tomtidgewellNovember 16, 2022

“Suggestions for surviving power outages: Use ice in the washing machine to keep food from spoiling.”

Renee Clutterbach (left) and Taeg O’Gorman give a presentation on tornadoes and microbursts at Algonquin College on Monday. Photo by Jean Rebaque /post media

If you cover the campfire with dirt after you’re done using it, the hot embers can burn and travel along the roots of the trees, causing a forest fire.

Crayons can be used as emergency candles when the power goes out at night and the lights go out. They don’t last long and you don’t want to smoke their chemicals for too long. Try to explain it to her.

On the other hand, if you can’t get indoors during a tornado, lie face down in a ditch with your hands over your head.

Another suggestion for surviving a power outage is to put ice in your washing machine to keep your food from spoiling. Melted ice doesn’t cause chaos.

These are just a few of the tips provided by Algonquin College firefighter education and training program students at a public education event held Monday night at the school’s Woodroffe Avenue campus.

Calamity Fair — my name is it. Their show was a community risk reduction show. A cohort of 58 students in the program will be seen at his dozen or so stations to share facts and figures with the curious public and preventive measures to be taken in case of wildfires, tornadoes and opioids. and shared countermeasures. Overdose and blackout. Other topics covered include sexual assault prevention, yielding to emergency vehicles, building material hazards, fire extinguisher use, items to include in a 72-hour emergency kit (including cash, self-explanatory if you ask me) It is included.

This is the first time that most of these topics have been included in the program, said Sherrill Hardwick, a professor at the school’s Police and Public Safety Institute. She said this indicates that firefighters are responding to an increasing number of calls.

“It gives[students]a broader view of what the trade is, rather than just focusing on structural firefighting,” she said. These are all things that touched our community recently.

“So these are things that we need to be aware of and that we can all be part of the solution.”

Monday’s briefing was also an indictment of changes in the world we live in. Meteorological phenomena that used to occur infrequently are occurring much more frequently there. According to the emergency database maintained by the Brussels-based Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters, global economic losses from extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and storms will be $224 billion in 2021, nearly double the average (1,180 billion dollars). USA) for the last 20 years. Add to that the human cost.

“And if everyone had all this information, like this 72-hour emergency kit,” said student Liam Campbell. I think it’s important that people take responsibility for their lives and be prepared. ”

So keep those crayons handy (or buy some candles).

Ottawa photographer JA Lamont's 'A shadow fall on the Lowell Glacier' was selected as this year's joint photo in an international competition judging nearly 11,000 photographs submitted by photographers from 55 countries. — Ottawa photographer JA Lamont’s ‘A shadow fall on the Lowell Glacier’ was selected as this year’s joint photo in an international competition judging nearly 11,000 photographs submitted by photographers from 55 countries. Photo credit: JA Lamont

Speaking of climate-related topics, congratulations to Ottawa photographer JA Lamont. His photo “A shadow fall on the Lowell Glacier” has been selected as Photo of the Year for his 2022 Natural Landscapes Photography competition by Austrian photographer Philip Jaskesch.

The international competition had approximately 11,000 photos submitted by 1,179 photographers from 55 countries. The winner was announced on Tuesday.

Lamont’s photo depicts the shadow of a nearby peak on Lowell Glacier in Yukon’s Kluang National Park. This photo, taken from a Cessna 172 last July, is part of a glacier project that Lamont started about 15 years ago. In 2017, he held an exhibition titled “Glacial Flows: Notes for a Requiem,” and earlier this year the city of Ottawa made permanent two of his prints depicting his Donjek glacier, also in the Yukon. I bought it as a collector’s item.

Lamont says that as he continued to photograph glaciers, he witnessed a rapid deterioration of the ecosystem in a coal mine that rivaled that of a canary.

“At the heart of why I do everything in this field is that these things deserve our attention,” he says. “It’s crazy because glaciers are an early warning system and most people don’t see glaciers every day. This is an opportunity to do so, and it is very important.

“We see changes that should be measured in geological time, like hundreds or thousands of years, but they are happening in five or ten years. They are not merely indicators and their demise will cause horrific suffering and dislocation throughout the world.”

visit naturallandscapeawards.com/competition-results-2022/ View all winning photos.

bdeachman@postmedia.com