British Columbians Urged To Prepare For Cold Weather, Winter Conditions

The province is freeing up cash to help ensure people in B.C. are prepared for the arrival of colder temperatures and other winter hazards with new cold-weather response funding and preparedness resources.

It’s released a new cold-weather preparedness guide, as well as new funding for cold-weather preparedness, along with the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres (BCAAFC) and United Way BC.

The Friendship Centres will implement cold-weather preparedness and response initiatives through 22 centres, to, in part, ensure there are warming areas and extended hours and services for elders, and extended hours and services in shelters for unhoused people.

United Way BC will develop a cold-weather emergency preparations guide for not-for-profit organizations and fund implementation of the recommendations in the guide to partner organizations supporting seniors and communities who may be more vulnerable to extreme weather in B.C.

The Province provided each organization $200,000 for this work. These grants are in addition to more than $430,000 in provincial funding announced in August for the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund to support communities to plan for extreme temperatures.

This month, the Province is introducing a new feature on EmergencyInfoBC for First Nations and local governments to add the locations of emergency warming centres, public warming spaces and Emergency Support Services reception centres to a provincewide map,

This winter, the province says it is funding 5,000 shelter spaces in 50 communities throughout BC, including permanent, temporary, and extreme-weather response (EWR) shelters, which open overnight when a community issues an extreme weather alert.

More shelter spaces are set to  open this winter as communities identify additional sites.