Has B.C. done enough to prepare since deadly 2021 heat dome?

It’s been two years since the BC heat Dome that left more than 600 people dead has the province done enough since then to adapt to the extreme weather for that conversation we’ve reached andrean doyen she is an assistant professor and director of the resource and environmental planning program at Simon

Fraser University and we’ve reached her in Vancouver where it is hot so let me start with the first question to you which is what everyone on the west coast I think is asking right now is these we’re dealing with these temperatures what are you doing to stay cool

Um we are fortunate in that we have a portable air conditioning unit um so we’ve got that hooked up we’ve got lots of fans uh we’ve got lots of cold liquids and Ice um in the fridge and we’re not planning to turn on the oven anytime soon

Adrian I think when we talk about temperatures like British Columbia is experiencing certainly in Parts uh right now most of Canada probably thinks back to the 2021 heat Dome wondering whether or not um what are seen by you know many as critical failures that led to so many

Deaths whether or not those have been adequately addressed what are your thoughts I think some of them or some of the failures have been addressed one of the um biggest critics of what happened before the heat dome in 2021 was the lack of communication um there wasn’t a widespread

Communication around that heat Dome was covering and what that meant so in the subsequent years we’ve had heat waves the next two summers and communication I would say both from the government as well as the media has been much better at telling people sooner when heat

Events are going to occur and how they might prepare for that so I would definitely say that communication has improved since the heat dome in 2021 I would also say what has improved is um Public Health and emergency management type responses so we’re seeing a larger number of cooling

Centers being made available as well as access to those cooling centers so thinking about making sure that people are aware of those cooling centers and even in some municipalities shuttle services to get particularly vulnerable communities to those cooling centers so those are two areas where I say we’ve definitely seen an improvement

Um so communication and then public um sort of Public Health and emergency responses where we aren’t oh go ahead well that was what I was going to ask you next is what needs to improve I’ve certainly heard calls for greater access to uh not just cooling centers but air

Conditioning in in homes particularly low-income homes what are your thoughts there yeah I think definitely one of the things that we need to see more of is is not just air conditioning although that’s I would say sort of an immediate response and a Band-Aid that in certain locations and for certain vulnerable

Populations we need those right away and the government both the provincial government and BC Hydro are providing air conditioning units to vulnerable populations so that’s in process and that’s happening one of the challenges there is that not all buildings have the electrical capacity to handle that many air conditioning units added to their

Buildings so we’re seeing some troubles with the infrastructure itself so we need to be thinking about how we might want retrofit existing buildings so that they can handle air conditioning but also that they can be more prepared um in terms of passive measures not necessarily always relying on mechanical

Systems but how can art we improve our buildings and our landscape so that they can help cool us down again without always having to rely on mechanical processes one thing I want to ask you about is the difference between a heat Dome and a heat wave because since the heat dome in

British Columbia as he has spiked throughout the summer it’s a constant revisit to that conversation because of what was experienced because of that he don’t but what BC is experiencing right now is not it doesn’t fit the definition of necessarily a heat dome but that same heat could still be dangerous

Of course yeah so one of the major differences is with a heat Dome we don’t see a dip in temperatures so we were seeing 30 plus degrees during the day and at night so we there was no reprieve um so you know sort of Darius was just saying earlier you know he encourages

Everyone to stay inside um particularly if you have access to air conditioning and even if you don’t have access to air conditioning you really want to make sure that your windows are closed that your curtains are closed and you’re trying to prevent the Sun from coming in

During a heat wave normally what happens is it cools down at night so that’s when you want to open up your house you want to open up the windows and doors and let that cool air in and cool down your unit or your house and then go back to

Closing it up during the heat Dome we couldn’t do that because it didn’t get cooler at all so again no reprieve which meant our bodies and our houses couldn’t cool down and that was which made it much more sort of extreme in terms of impacting the vulnerable populations and

The high number of deaths that we saw given your role just finally giving your role in environmental planning the fact that we do have these conversations now uh serious conversations about what to do during extreme heat Events maybe they weren’t had quite as often prior to the

Heat down that has to be is that a positive at least to take away from all of this definitely I think when when I was being asked in 2021 you know what do I hope comes out of this and I was saying I really do hope that we talk about this

More we need to be planning for extreme heat and so I I am glad that it has remained part of the conversation we are having more people at the provincial and Municipal level engaging in discussions around what does it mean to plan for extreme heat and really beginning to

Think about that I still think a lot of the thinking is more short term so again Public Health and emergency management and I would really like to see more discussion and more energy and action to longer term thinking so we’re going to keep getting heat waves here in BC and

So how do we respond to that so that in five years 10 years 30 years time our communities are better off and more prepared for the heat so that’s where I’d like to see more attention um but we are definitely talking about heat more than we used to

Environment Canada has issued heat warnings and special weather statements for much of southern B.C., saying temperatures are expected to reach up to 34 C in the southwest and up to 39 C further east. The Ministry of Emergency Management has said a repeat of the 2021 heat dome is not in the forecast, but they’re warning people to take precautions by staying out of the heat, drinking water and limiting activity.

Read more: www.cbc.ca/1.6935750

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