You can never be too prepared for sudden weather changes. This week is Emergency Preparedness Week in Manitoba where there's added attention to make sure you're prepared for anything. 

"Emergency Preparedness Week is a week to reflect on how important it is to be prepared as Canadians, both in your community but also as individuals and families. We each have a responsibility to ensure that we're prepared in the event that either we're isolated in our homes, which we obviously experienced during COVID-19 for a long period of time, or in the event that we have to evacuate our community," Cailin Egan, the Manager of the Emergency Management Program at St. John Ambulance says. 

Egan has some helpful tips on what to think about. "The most practical thing that I would recommend is to meet as a family, talk with your kids about the risks faced in Manitoba, and make sure that you have a plan," Egan says. "If you're at work and your kids are at school and something happens during the day, then everyone remains calm."

Egan reminds residents to go out to grab a few essentials. "A really good example would be some toilet paper and a first aid kit. Also a flashlight, extra batteries, things that can help you to both be in your home or to depart your home if needed."

She also shares the importance of making sure everyone in the house knows what to do in case of an emergency, even the kids. To have that conversation in a healthy way while being honest but not scaring them, Egan recommends, "Understanding as a family that we're very fortunate in Canada that we don't face a lot of these everyday risks that some folks in other countries do. To sit down and talk about what kinds of situations you might face."

While this is the week that is recognized as Emergency Preparedness Week, Egan says that it goes on all year round. "It's definitely something we should do all year round, especially in Manitoba. Just starting to come into summer and we'll start to see an increase in wildfires in Manitoba, which is something that could strike any time, but also can impact us not only at home, but where we've decided to go camping for the weekend or, we've decided to do a family hike on Saturday and maybe we're not going to be able to do that now because of wildfire season. So we always really need to be prepared, as Manitobans and the best way we can do that is to make sure that we're self-sufficient for about 72 hours in the event something were to occur."