Regional District of Central Okanagan chair Loyal Wooldridge.

Image Credit: FACEBOOK/LoyalWooldridge

West Kelowna Councillor Rick de Jong wants a quick “independent public hearing” on how emergency services responded to the McDougall Creek Wildfire that forced the evacuation of 26,000 residents in a 48-hour period in and around West Kelowna this past August.

But despite unanimous support from his West Kelowna City Council colleagues for his motion calling on the regional district to set up a public review of what happened, the regional district has other ideas.

READ MORE: West Kelowna leads charge for public investigation into emergency services during wildfire

While he hasn't formally received a copy of de Jong's motion, Loyal Wooldridge, chair of the Regional District of Central Okanagan, told iNFOnews.ca he is "really well versed in the subject" and doesn't necessarily agree that having a public input session is the route to go.

“I think we have differing opinions on how to address that," he said. "I was down there almost every day at the Emergency Support Services site so I’m pretty well versed in what folks were experiencing. I’m also very cognizant of not retraumatizing people, from a mental health perspective, who have gone through a crisis.

“I’m definitely open to see how we can best allow people to speak to their experience. Legislatively, I don’t know if a public hearing is the appropriate stage for that to happen but I’ve definitely heard that request. I don’t know what the solution is to that right now but we will definitely look into how we can accommodate something for the public to be able to share their experiences.”

What he has done is ask staff to start a process to have a third party conduct a review with all the staff involved in the emergency. It will look at both the region’s emergency management plan and Emergency Support Services where volunteers were overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the evacuation.

While work is underway to hire a consultant, the actual review may not happen until early next year, Wooldridge said.

The regional district has not yet received a copy of de Jong's motion from West Kelowna. That’s expected to be sent next week.

de Jong served his notice of motion to West Kelowna council on Sept. 16 that wasn’t discussed by that council until Oct. 10.

READ MORE: West Kelowna politician calls for public review of wildfire emergency operations

He sees some urgency in setting up a session for public input this fall.

“While we’re moving away into recovery, now’s the time to do this,” de Jong told iNFOnews.ca at the time. “If we wait until December or January, memories aren’t going to be as fresh. From volunteers to workers to residents who were impacted, I do believe there’s some stories that need to be told. There’s some sharing that needs to happen as part of the healing process and as part of the learning process to understand better what happened.”

On Oct. 3, the province announced that it had created a 14-member emergency management task force to review its emergency responses in time to make changes before next year’s wildfire season.

No one from the Central Okanagan was named to that task force.

READ MORE: Kamloops is on provincial emergency task force but not the Okanagan

At Thursday’s Central Okanagan Regional District board meeting, a letter to the province’s Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness was approved, with no discussion by board members.

The letter raised concerns about the emergency response system.

“The online registration which allowed residents to register for support and get a call back from an Emergency Support Services volunteer, took days,” it said. “The issue was not the ability to put roofs over heads, but the speed at which people can be processed for supports. In short, the current information systems and associated actions, cannot process nor be executed, at the speed of the need.”

Wooldridge was told by volunteers that it takes a minimum of 28 minutes for the simplest registration. With 26,000 people, that meant more than 12,000 hours just to register them.

Especially for mass evacuations, the emergency response system should be “needs based,” he suggested ,as a means to speed up that process.

Like COVID responses, that means everyone evacuated would be entitled to supports for the first 72 hours with no questions asked about things like insurance coverage, he said.

“The Regional District of Central Okanagan’s Emergency Operation Centre is considered the gold standard and is one of only a few regional programs in the province,” the letter to the Ministry says. “As leaders in the region, we welcome the work of the task force and respectfully ask to be engaged as an integral part of the development of future emergency management planning in BC.”

Given that, and prior emergency experience, iNFOnews.ca asked the Ministry why no one from the Central Okanagan was included on the task force.

The Ministry did not respond directly to that question.

“We recognize there is expertise and experience to draw on outside the Emergencies Task Force membership, which is why task force members will draw on outside expertise, including the Central Okanagan Regional District,” the Ministry said in an email.

That likely means that a consultant will talk to regional staff involved in all aspects of the McDougall Creek Wildfire response and some of those staff members may be consulted by the provincial task force.

But the 26,000 people who were evacuated from their homes and, in many cases, had to wait days even to register let alone receive things like vouchers for food and accommodation, may not have any formal way to tell those in authority what they lived through and how they think the system can be improved.

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