Penticton lining up facilities in preparation for summer emergencies | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
Subscribe

Would you like to subscribe to our newsletter?

Penticton News

Penticton lining up facilities in preparation for summer emergencies

City of Penticton staff are lining up city buildings and agreements with other property owners for use by emergency support services this summer.

Penticton is preparing for the upcoming summer fire season.

City council will be asked to approve the use of several venues for emergency social service operations and support centres at tomorrow, June 1.

The city is eyeing the former Greyhound bus barn at 199 Ellis St. for its primary emergency support services reception centre should a major disaster happen this summer.

The facility is owned by the city.

Staff are also looking at the Community Centre at 325 Power St. as a back-up emergency support services facility, having learned during last summer’s Christie Mountain wildfire of the possible need to house large numbers of the city’s population.

Approval for Fire Hall number two at 285 Dawson Ave. to serve as office, training and storage space for emergency support services is also being sought from council at Tuesday’s meeting, as is continuation of an agreement between the city and Okanagan Skaha School District for use of Princess Margaret School as a backup facility for group lodging or as a reception centre during an emergency.

Staff are also asking council to approve a continued arrangement for use of the Senior’s Drop in Centre at 2965 South Main St. as a back up facility during emergencies.

Nailing down use of those facilities would ensure the city would have adequate roofs over the heads of the 50 to 80 emergency social service teams serving the city and surrounding area during a disaster, as well as potential evacuees.

Emergency social services typically offer support through operation of reception centres and group lodging facilities.

The financial costs for the arrangements and agreements put in place for use of the facilities noted above would be minimal, a report to council suggests, noting costs for use during a disaster or emergency could be claimed from the province through the province’s emergency management program.

Council will look at approving the arrangements at tomorrow's regular council meeting.


To contact a reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad or call 250-488-3065 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to tips@infonews.ca and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.

News from © iNFOnews, 2021
iNFOnews

  • Popular vernon News
View Site in: Desktop | Mobile