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By Adam Donnelly

EMERGENCY SUPPORT SERVICES

City of Kamloops hopes to bolster emergency volunteer ranks

Feb 14, 2024 | 6:00 PM

KAMLOOPS — The City of Kamloops has put out a call for volunteers to help bolster the ranks of Emergency Support Services, which help plan for the well-being of their fellow citizens in the event of a disaster.

ESS volunteers have been busy for the past several years, thanks to a large number of evacuations that have occurred over that time. While there are many residents who already put in time with ESS, the city hopes to add to those numbers in order to ensure they can meet the demands of running an Emergency Reception Centre when evacuations take place.

“This is sort of the preparedness season, as we lead up to freshet and fire season. This is sort of that sweet time of the year to get people trained and ready for the summer,” Natasha Hartson, City of Kamloops Community and Emergency Support Supervisor, explains. “Typically what happens is that people want to get involved when the event has already started, and they feel that sense of urgency and desire to help. I encourage people to get involved earlier because, unfortunately, we can’t take walk-up volunteers.”

There are a variety of roles that volunteers fill with ESS during an emergency, from greeting and registering evacuees to helping direct them toward resources after they’ve registered. If you want to find out more, the city is hosting a pair of information sessions in the coming weeks.

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“You can attend an information session coming up on February 21 or 24 where you get a chance to meet the team, learn how the operations work, and learn about some of the training requirements,” Hartson suggests. “If you aren’t able to attend one of the information sessions, we encourage you to go online to kamloops.ca/ESS and you can actually put your name and information in as an expression of interest and someone from the team will reach out to you and walk you through the next steps of getting involved.”