The mayor of Notre-Dame-des-Monts believes that the isolated emergency rescue team (SUMI) should, ideally, carry out its winter missions with two snowmobiles.
The mayor was called upon to react to the recent intervention of the SUMI team which occurred on the night of January 2. “It’s like when a road accident happens, there are always two ambulances. In the best of all worlds, we would go out on two snowmobiles without discovering any territory. Just one is not always enough,” explains Alexandre Girard.
The team responded as usual with a single snowmobile. There was no problem. A second machine means more rescuers, but an increase in their security, recognizes the mayor of Notre-Dame-des-Monts.
“There was still a lot of money invested to equip the three teams of the MRC de Charlevoix-Est,” he said. Three snowmobiles were purchased, but in the end each team received one, i.e. one machine per sector since the mayors divided the territory into three.
That said, the Quebec government paid a good part of it. And that did not prevent the Western team from requesting assistance from the Central team (La Malbaie) to come and support them in clearing the path with a chainsaw.
“We are still in the implementation phase. We are still checking off what we need,” says the mayor, who expects changes to occur in this area.
Alexandre Girard took advantage of this interview to show his appreciation to the team made up of members of the Clermont, Saint-Aimé-des-Lacs and Notre-Dame-des-Monts brigades. “The group is doing very well. The team gets the job done. It seems that they (the firefighters) have been working together for years,” he concludes.
Details of the January 2 intervention.
