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COLCHESTER:<\/strong> After Hurricane Fiona left thousands of Nova Scotians without phone service, the Houston government is taking steps to improve disaster preparedness by holding telecommunications companies accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hon. John Lohr, the Minister responsible for the Emergency Management Office, introduced legislation Thursday at Province House that would require telecommunication companies to create annual emergency response plans to better support Nova Scotians during times of crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”72″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nova Scotian resilience has been on full display throughout the storm\u2019s aftermath, but many residents have been exposed to additional danger by being unable to phone for help, a peril for which they foot the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe only had a cell phone and that wasn\u2019t working very well and without data.\u00a0 We are elderly and with health problems but thankfully we didn\u2019t have any emergencies,\u201d said Colchester residents Donna and George MacNeil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHopefully we won\u2019t have another storm like Fiona soon but hopefully the telecommunications companies will be better prepared if we do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”111″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”2″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the legislation passes, telecommunications companies will be obligated to take all reasonable steps to ensure customers have continued access to 911 and to immediately notify the public of any disruptions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, their presence will be required at the Provincial Coordination Centre to collaborate with partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable that residents were left in such a vulnerable position while still having to pay for a service that did nothing for them,\u201d said Colchester North MLA Tom Taggart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTelecommunications companies have to do better, and I\u2019m glad we are holding them accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Companies could face heavy penalties if they fail to comply, with fines up to $250,000 per day.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”84″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”161″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [adrotate banner=”156″] [adrotate banner=”78″] COLCHESTER: After Hurricane Fiona left thousands of Nova Scotians without phone service, the Houston government is taking steps to improve disaster preparedness by holding telecommunications companies accountable. Hon. John Lohr, the Minister responsible for the Emergency Management Office, introduced legislation Thursday at Province House that would require telecommunication companies to create […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[957],"tags":[4330,4205,48,263,4331],"class_list":["post-31926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-colchester","tag-hurricane-fiona","tag-n-s","tag-nspc","tag-tom-taggart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}