This week marks Emergency Preparedness Week and the City of Estevan wants you to remember your pet should an emergency hit.

"What we found out with some of the emergencies that we've dealt with in the past," shared Estevan's EMO Coordinator, Helen Fornwald, "especially in the 2011 flood that no one wants to remember, we did an evacuation. And we just felt that we needed to inform our residents how best to handle the safety of pets in an emergency."

"So what we are distributing are stickers to our residents. They can install them in the front door in their windows, visible to emergency services. It'll be issued to everyone in the event that we need to do a mandatory evacuation."

"Those stickers are going out in our water bills that everyone gets at the end of May and June. We ask that people put those on their doors and their windows and if they do have pets, mark off what pets, how many, and an emergency contact number."

"We never know what constitutes a pet in someone's home and how many they have and we certainly learned that out. It was a learning experience for us too as well as the residents when we did that evacuation regarding pets."

She added that they will be visiting grade three classes in schools around the city throughout the week.  

"We want the children to go home with the packages that we give them and they can discuss emergency family plan right in their own homes."

She added that having an emergency kit already prepared will help out in the case of an emergency.

"We'd like for people to have a kit at home as well as a vehicle because you never know when you're going to need that."

A full list of what should be included in an emergency kit can be found on the City's website.