Emergency alerts for extreme heat could save lives, experts say Globalnews.ca

Experts say that sending emergency alerts during this time Excessive heat Incidents can save lives, but a multi-pronged approach to alerting the public is needed to reach the most vulnerable residents and help them take action.

several Ontario An emergency alert was received on his mobile phone in mid-May advising him to seek shelter as a deadly storm surges across the province, but experts say such alerts should be avoided for major heat events. Can also be employed, including those that last several days – such as one currently playing in Ontario.

Blair Feltmet, head of the Interact Center on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, said more severe heat events due to climate change are on the horizon, she said, pointing to a recent report that projects extreme temperatures and heat waves. Is. Canada will become more serious in the future.

Irreversible Extreme Heat: Protecting Canadians and Communities from the Deadly Future report notes that many changes caused by past and future greenhouse-gas emissions will be irreversible over centuries to millennia and that Canada is warming at twice the global rate on average – annually. Between 1948 and 2016, the average temperature increased by 1.7 °C.

To better respond to extreme heat events, Feltmet said jurisdictions across Canada should develop heat alert systems similar to those launched in British Columbia last month to warn of potentially deadly temperatures.

The BC Heat Alert and Response System was developed after the province recorded nearly 600 heat-related fatalities during last summer’s so-called Heat Dome.

“(Deaths) are often presented in terms of being a BC event, but quite clearly, that extreme heat event could have affected Winnipeg, it could have been Toronto, it could have been Montreal, it could have been Halifax. Yes, it could have hit anywhere in the country. It just happened to hit BC,” Feltmate said.

“But certainly every other province and certainly the smaller town in the country, obviously, should take guidance from what has now been announced to increase security in British Columbia.”

Gordon McBean, professor emeritus and director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at Western University, said residents should be warned to look for cold spots so they are not in harm’s way.

He said that such alert systems should be consistent across jurisdictions and should complement each other to warn residents of neighboring areas should they see a similar extreme heat event on their way.

“It is necessary to coordinate these (systems) across the country. “We need information and warning systems that are consistent from province to province,” said McBean, who spent decades as a climate scientist with Environment Canada.

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However, both Feltmate and McBean cautioned that some of the most vulnerable people during heat waves are the elderly and homeless, who may not have access to the technology needed to receive alerts sent through cellphones and broadcast channels. .

Feltmate said those vulnerable individuals should be regularly checked in by community members or loved ones during heat waves to ensure they are properly hydrated, whether they need help at a cooling center, or If they have access to a working fan or air conditioning.

“We need people looking for them,” he said.

“It starts with mapping where they are to begin with, and then when a heat wave happens, we need to check someone once or twice a day.”

McBean suggested there is also a need for a system that captures critical information about extreme heat events and given emergencies to all residents, such as what they should do to prepare for and respond to extreme heat.

“We have to find ways to provide this information so that the homeless, the elderly and those who do not have access (the technology that receives alerts), and where there may be language barriers, get that information,” he said. .

Now is the time to prepare for extreme heat across the country, Feltmet said, because the heat is much deadlier than other extreme weather events, such as the thunderstorms that hit much of Ontario in May.

“Generally speaking, during the floods and wildfires, or extreme wind events that we saw recently, we have zero deaths or low numbers,” he said.

“With the extreme heat, it is in the second category entirely. When things go wrong with extreme heat, the death toll can be in the hundreds, if not thousands, and that’s why we have to come up with a strong sense at this time to combat the effects of scorching heat. Gotta move on.”