Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Dylana Milobar

TRUDEAU KAMLOOPS VISIT

Multi-level government discussions in Kamloops focused on emergency management

May 22, 2019 | 5:11 PM

KAMLOOPS — While Justin Trudeau was in Kamloops, City Hall played host to the Prime Minister, along with federal and provincial ministers, to discuss emergency management improvements.

In particular, those in attendance received a briefing from the B.C Forest Service, and Mayor Ken Christian says that pointed out areas of improvement, and strength with wildfire season already starting.

“It was a great opportunity to talk about 2017, 2018, and the lessons that we’ve learned as a host community for emergency support services,” he says. “We heard from a number of First Nations leaders in attendance and they talked about the cultural sensitivity of evacuations and the ancestral knowledge that they have of fire, and issues related to language and registration.”

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Christian says it wasn’t an election style visit for the PM, more making sure government are prepared, given the indicators wildfire experts have observed around how severe summers fires could be.

“All of them point to drought conditions in certainly the lower and mid elevations, and that can, depending on the weather in June, lead us into a very risky situation for July and August.”

One of the improvements being tested in Kamloops for wildfire season will see Emergency Social Services’ paper registration for evacuees digitized.

Christian says the Tournament Capital has been the location for the pilot project run through of the system, and hopes if the time comes to use it, it’ll prove beneficial.

“It was quite cumbersome to register and then re-register all of the evacuees that we had in 2017,” he says. “So this new system will be operated off laptops, and it will be a permanent record of where people are, and when they can expect to go home, and how we can contact them.”

Coming out of the meeting, Christian says city hall feels the experience Kamloops gained after hosting thousands of wildfire evacuees in 2017 provided unique insight into what can be done to improve.