The City of Kamloops is preparing for the possibility of having two emergencies at once.

City manager David Trawin says there’s a real possibility of spring flooding happening soon, while the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

“We’d kind of split the EOC into two when that happens. We’ll have one room dealing with the COVID crisis, the other room, which would more of general operations, would be dealing with flooding. And they’d be coming together for updates in the Emergency Operations Centre as needed.”

The city voted today to hold a council meeting next Wednesday, April 15,  to talk about “another pending emergency” of potential spring flooding, according to mayor Ken Christian.

City manager David Trawin tells NL News that if it’s needed, the Emergency Operations Centre will have different rooms to deal with flooding while continuing to respond to the COVID-19 public health crisis.

He was asked how the city is better prepared from flooding in recent years.

“From three or four or even five years ago, our mapping has gotten better. Where we can anticipate based upon what government tells us of potential (snowpack) levels, on what areas we do need to put sandbags, diking, based upon our models. So we’ve done that.”

As for laying sandbags while maintaining social distancing, Trawin says that’s something that will come up at next week’s meeting.

“We are potentially looking at ideas in order to make sandbags earlier, if we can with some help, or as well as, how do we lay them, in terms of keeping social distancing? And with the limited time we have. Which means we’re going to have to prepare earlier and get ready for all this, and it’s going to take us more time to do what we normally do,” he says.

“But is it an issue? Yes. Are we developing a plan to try to look at how to get around that? Absolutely.”

The latest information on snowpack conditions will be released tomorrow by the BC River Forecast Centre. Last month, the data suggested there was an elevated flood risk for the Kamloops area.