Is Windsor ready for a U.S. chemical disaster?

Is Windsor ready for a chemical disaster? It's a question I've been digging into after the recent airborne chemical leak 90 kilometers away in Ohio. We can smell some type of chemical and we're nowhere near this plume. Hundreds of people had to evacuate to avoid burns to their eyes, mouth and skin. If there was a disaster large enough to affect Windsor, this is the roadmap, the city's emergency response plan. Useful to have since we're surrounded by industries using dangerous chemicals. I mean, the nearby Sarnia area is nicknamed Chemical Valley. The plan says the mayor has to be the one to declare an emergency. Local fire, police and EMS officials do a lot of the heavy lifting from there. The local agencies definitely have understanding of our own community risks greater than anybody else. The resources, the operational priorities, who we can reach out to, who we can connect with, establish relationships within the community. But there are times where we can reach out to the province or to the federal agencies to bring in support. So whether that support is manpower, whether that support is expertise that we don't have. Windsor has declared emergencies before, like during the Ambassador Bridge border blockade in 2022, or in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, or for weather damage over the years. The response is unique to each scenario, but the reaction to a chemical emergency could look much different than any of those cases. Heat is released during chemical reactions, and without any temperature control, the temperature builds up and these materials are volatile, and then pressure builds up, and then you can have a release like what would have occurred in Toledo. Once it starts in a confined environment like that, it's difficult to control. Obviously, if you have a big plume of it, I mean, it's going to disperse into the air. Windsor Fire and Rescue Services, we actually have a hazardous materials slash CBRN team. So that's chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive. We've been training with our team for about 25 years. We've been part of that provincial team. It's up to City Council to keep Windsor's emergency response plan up to date. If there's an emergency called you can sign up online to get alerts sent to your phone