Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Marty Hastings

Emergency reception

Quiet for now, the Kamloops emergency reception centre stands ready to help

Jul 24, 2024 | 5:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — The McArthur Island Sport and Event Centre is home to the City of Kamloops Emergency Support Service (ESS) host community reception centre.

With wildfires burning across the province and in Alberta, it is the city’s designated hub for registering evacuees in need of shelter, refreshments and information on what to do next.

Most the team of more than 200 volunteers in Kamloops signed up to help has been sidelined this week, and there were no displaced out-of-towners to be found on Wednesday (July 24) morning when CFJC Today dropped by the host centre.

Will Beatty, ESS branch co-ordinator for the city, said plans are in place to help if the situation changes.

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“With the recent lightning strikes that have come to the Central Interior, we remained in a heightened response stage,” said Beatty. “We’re awaiting conversations and calls with local municipalities, as well as the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, to see if there are any other actions our Emergency Support Services host community reception centre can assist with if there happens to be expanded alerts or orders.”

Beatty said the host centre can accept evacuees from anywhere in B.C., but there do appear to be complications when it comes to processing evacuees from other provinces, including Alberta.

More than 20,000 people fled wildfires in Jasper on Monday, including some who stopped in Kamloops.

Beatty said the city did what it could to help, despite jurisdictional complications between the B.C. and Alberta governments.

“It’s just a specific line in the sand for provincial jurisdiction, but do know that both provinces were talking. They were in communication with the City of Kamloops, as well,” Beatty said.

“We worked closely with those folks to try and best support evacuees that could potentially need some brief relief from Jasper on their travels to Calgary and that was through light refreshments and it was at the Sandman Centre.”

Beatty said displaced members of communities are eligible for support through the ESS program for 72 hours following evacuation orders.

“Hotel accommodations are scarce,” he said. “We’re a community that accepts a lot of people for travel purposes and throughout the summer and winter seasons. We can’t just rely on hotel capacity, so we have to pivot and sometimes change to some less comfortable accommodation pieces. That’s to meet the needs of somebody who may need a place to stay.”

Beatty reminded residents to have personal billeting plans in place and to go online to register for the BC Services Card App, which offers online support to members of evacuated communities.