Dealing with a global pandemic is a new frontier for all municipalities in this province and it isn’t something covered in Gander’s emergency plan.
It will be going forward.
Municipal leaders around the province are all learning on the fly how best to address the situation.
“In most emergency situations, you are usually on your own so you’re trying to figure it out and put the pieces together,” said Town of Gander chief administrative officer Dermot Chafe. “In this case, because it is an international pandemic and because we have other communities in the province and other provinces in the country we sort of get a view of down the pipeline ... it gave us a little bit of insight and we knew what other communities were doing.
“We knew what was going on in other places at the time, so that makes the decision a little bit easier.”
Chafe didn’t have much time for breaks on March 16.
He was one of a number of people working to put preventative measures in place against the spread of novel coronavirus COVID-19.
Those conversations started at eight in the morning and continued for the next 12 hours. They involved Mayor Percy Farwell, representatives from Central Health, emergency personnel and other town officials.
“It is still not enough time to do what you need to do,” said Chafe. “When you get home, you’re still going ... there is more to do now and there is more to be done tomorrow.”
By 8:30 p.m. Monday night, March 16, Gander had made some decisions.
They suspended public access to the town hall, the Steele Community Centre, the municipal works depot and the fire hall as of March 18. The town also cancelled all of its events, and council meetings will no longer be open to the public.
The town continue to maintain core services like water and sewer, fire rescue, snow clearing and others.
“The situation is evolving quickly and the response is an evolving process as well and it will continue to be,” said Farwell. “There are a lot of moving parts and a lot to consider, especially, in our case we are a municipality that has a workforce that provides very essential services.”
Neither Farwell or Chafe could say whether the immediate steps taken by the town would be the final measures they would enact during the pandemic.
“This is a public health issue,” said Farwell. “Job one is making sure this isn’t making us all worse off than we are now.”