The City of Kamloops has laid out how it intends to deal with another extreme heat emergency like the one we saw last year.

Like previous years, the city intends to open indoor and outdoor community cooling centers during levels of extreme heat using the 35-18-35 forecast – a daytime high of at least 35 C followed by a nighttime low of at least 18 C, for two days in a row.

City staff expect to see that scenario one-to-three times per summer.

“During heat events, the city’s CSOs as with last year will coordinate outreach and response efforts with other street outreach teams in the city and also hand out bottled water to people experiencing homelessness, coordinate transportation to shelters or potentially supportive housing sites through the Envision shuttle service,” Community Development Manager Carmen Mazzotta told council.

Seventeen of the 619 people who died as a result of the heat dome were in Kamloops, according to the BC Coroners Service. They also noted that 98 per cent of all heat-related deaths in B.C. happened indoors in places without adequate cooling systems like air conditioners or fans.

Mazzotta noted it is why the City is promoting the concept of neighbour health checks this summer.

“What we are going to be encouraging is using some public health messaging that has been crafted and that exists within the emergency preparedness guide as well as other public health messaging distilling that down and encouraging people to go and check on their neighbours, look for signs of heat distress which will be included in the messaging,” he said.

“They’ll be information on who to call, when to call, how to cool a home whether it has AC or not, so different strategies for that as well as how to cool individuals who may be in heat distress.”

Earlier this month, the B.C. government said it will use the Alert Ready system in the event of extreme heat with two levels of alerts – heat warnings and extreme heat emergencies.

Mazzotta did note that Kamloops is sometimes designated as evacuation centre, which could mean that resources may be stretched thin in the event wildfire evacuees are in town during extreme heat. In that case, the City will look at recruiting volunteers to assist in cooling centres.

The city of Kamloops is also going to be hunting for $30,000 in grant money to update their community mapping, to figure out which specific areas of Kamloops would be more vulnerable to heat-related deaths. The intent would be to allow the City to develop effective response plans to prepare, mitigate, and adapt to the risks.

“Although such severe heat events are currently only anticipated to occur one to two times per decade, climate projections show that extremely hot days per year in Kamloops are anticipated to increase by 39 per cent by 2050,” Social and Community Development Supervisor, Ty Helgason said.

“[It] means that the intensity and frequency of extreme heat events are also anticipated to increase.”

– With files from Victor Kaisar