Anticipating future emergencies, N.S. builds online system for relief grants

Nova Scotia has built a new online system to help it administer emergency relief grants following lessons learned from post-tropical storm Fiona. 

The system hasn't been used yet, but it could be quickly deployed by any department after a disaster strikes. Service Nova Scotia Minister Colton LeBlanc said it could also be tailored to a particular area of the province if necessary. 

"If you look at the last year and beyond, we have been faced with a number of natural disasters," he said. "So it's not if it's going to happen again — it's just about when."

Fiona moved into Nova Scotia on Sept. 24, 2022, as a powerful post-tropical storm, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people and causing damage to homes and businesses. Within two days, the province announced relief grant programs.

However, the department responsible for administering the grants said in a recent review it realized the program didn't operate to its "full potential," and made some changes to make sure the next time goes more smoothly.

Largest-ever emergency rebate program

In 2022, LeBlanc's department was tasked with delivering the grants of $100 for spoiled food and $250 for fallen trees. The department didn't have an existing platform that could do the job, so staff quickly built a system that could accept applications, process them, and send out cheques. 

The programs received about 50,000 applications on the first day they opened, and about 30,000 more on the second day. 

In total, about 155,000 cheques went out to Nova Scotians in the largest emergency rebate program the province had ever delivered. 

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The processing of the applications was done in Microsoft Excel. This meant that staff had to account for issues like duplicate applications manually, which was difficult. That's changed in the new system, which will look the same to the public but improves processing for staff on the back end. 

'Frustrating and upsetting'

One of those relief cheques went to Adrienne MacNutt of Dartmouth, who lost everything in her deep-freeze following the storm. 

"Oh my God, I can't tell you how frustrating and upsetting it was," she said in a recent interview. 

MacNutt's home connection to the electrical grid was damaged, but partially working. She thought it was enough to keep the contents of her fridge and freezer cold. 

But at some point during the days of cleanup that followed, the electricity to her deep-freeze stopped working. 

"It took a lot of cleaning, and throwing out all those things was very upsetting because I have a garden and I harvest all my vegetables from the garden and I freeze them for the winter," she said.

"They were all spoiled. It was really disappointing." 

MacNutt applied for the spoiled food grant and received a cheque in the mail within a few weeks. She's hoping the coming hurricane season won't be as bad, but she's noticed reports of increasingly powerful storms. MacNutt said she bought a generator in case of more outages. 

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"So I'm hopeful that it will not happen to me," she said. "But if there is a power outage, I do have my generator. So, fingers crossed."