What is the difference between PDA and ESS?
A. ESS is activated to deal with community emergencies that force large numbers of people from their homes. Typical events in British Columbia that require ESS responses are apartment fires affecting multiple tenants, forest fire evacuations or flooding that forces people from their homes over a wide area. Personal Disaster Assistance (PDA) is a joint program of the ESS Program, Canadian Red Cross Society and PEP that is activated when a limited response is required to assist a small number of people. Typical events that require a PDA response are house fires or isolated flooding events which affect no more than one or two families. The services provided to evacuees are the same services that are provided to victims under ESS using the same forms and suppliers. PDA services are usually provided on site and reception centres are not opened. PDA is an effective program to ensure that victims of small disasters are looked after without activating an entire ESS team. ESS and PDA volunteers
