For the first time, and under guidelines established in June of 2021, Environment and Climate Change Canada has issued an emergency phone alert for a major thunderstorm, according to The CBC. Under these new guidelines, phone alerts are only issued for a thunderstorm when the winds exceed 130 km/h (approximately 80 mph) or if it includes hail measuring more than three inches.
The alert covered large parts of Ontario and western Quebec, and sought to provide advance warning to residents of the storm, which knocked out power to multiple regions within the provinces, and was attributed as the direct caused for several deaths. Said Peter Kimbell, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada, in an interview with the CBC, “The very fact you’re getting [the alert] on your screen is justification enough that it’s time to take shelter.”
While many people found the alert to be of assistance, there was some criticism, with Ottawa resident James Botte noting the alert could have been better worded. Said Botte, “They said possible tornadoes … If they said, ‘It doesn’t matter if there’s tornadoes, you’ll feel like you’re in a tornado and it’s not going to stop in 10 minutes like a tornado; it’s going to continue on for half an hour and it’s going to destroy everything in its path,’ … certainly, even for the urgent thing that I needed to do, I would have said, ‘No, we are not going to do this urgent thing today.'”
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