What the heck is NESS?

Have you ever heard of NESS? I guess you'd need a context... it has nothing to do with the Loch Ness monster. It stands for National Emergency Stockpile System. Does that help? Probably not... Maybe you heard on the news that the federal government of Canada recently released a supply of drugs from its emergency stockpile due to a shortage from supplier Sandoz. That's NESS.




NESS is essentially part of Canada's emergency preparedness plan. As their website says: "The system consists of a central depot in Ottawa, as well as a number of other warehouses and pre-positioned supply centres (under the combined management of the provinces and federal government) strategically located across Canada. The NESS contains various assets, from beds and blankets to a supply of pharmaceuticals, including a range of antibiotics. As well, it maintains medical units that can be deployed on short notice (within 24 hours) to be set up in existing buildings such as schools and community centres."

About 10 years ago, there was an editorial in my home-town newspaper. It was an article related to the NESS. Apparently, an old World War 2 army bunker near our town was one of the stockpiles of the NESS. The bunker essentially contained a mobile hospital, ready to be deployed in an emergency. There were 200 beds and three operating rooms tucked away there... think MASH style. The emergency preparedness coordinator explained how some staff were going to go to the provincial capitol to receive some training in the decades-old equipment. A few months after that, city council agreed with the local health authority, that the cache could be removed as "other safeguards were presumably in place".

A Senate Committee report in 2008 indicated that these emergency caches are often not well organized or well known. In some cases, local municipal emergency personnel aren't even aware of the location of the emergency caches.

But then, all of us should have our own emergency preparedness cache... our own little "bunker" at home. Can each of us be self-sufficient for 3 days, more likely a week? Food, water, shelter, first aid kit, essential meds.... What are the natural hazards in your area? Floods? Tsunamis? Earthquakes? Tornadoes? Mud slides? Hurricanes?