The mayor of Kamloops is asking people to be careful as we are in “unchartered territory” when it comes to extreme temperatures.
Ken Christian made those comments during the mayor’s report at City Council this afternoon when the temperature outside was 46.2 C – which would make it the third straight day the city has broken its own all time temperature record.
Prior to this heatwave, Kamloops had never seen a temperature above 41.7 C.
“I just want to reiterate to the public that this is not a novelty. This is dangerous. We are well beyond the temperature extremes for the City of Kamloops. And we are at a stage right now where there will be loss of life in our community as a result of this heat,” Christian said.
“The temperature extremes in Kamloops were minus-40 or plus-40. We are well into unchartered territory here now. And the infrastructure that we built this city on really wasn’t designed for this. So let’s slow down, be cautious, and do all of the things that we know how to do.”
Christian asked people to be cautious with their pets, children, seniors, and street-affected residents.
A cooling centre is open at the Sandman Centre from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m for the next few days. Christian also points out the city has shut down some of its construction projects this week and cut hours at the landfill.
Meanwhile, Christian also says the city drew more than 125 million litres of water on Monday. While that is well below capacity for the city’s water system, of 160 million litres per day, he admits the challenge is in distribution.
“So that you may well have periods of time where reservoir levels become low, and pumps overheat, and we can have those problems with intermittent power outages like we saw yesterday,” Christian added.
“So I would remind the public that now, more than ever, it’s important to adhere to water restrictions. More than ever this is particularly important right now.”
Christian says that includes having homeowners in even-numbered homes only watering on even-numbered days and odd-numbered houses doing so on odd-numbered days. He also says people should not water between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Today, at 46 C, the temperature was a full 20 degrees warmer than the historical daily high for June 29 in Kamloops. The temperature is expected to be 43 C in Kamloops Wednesday, before dropping slightly in the days after, to 38 C for Thursday and Friday, 33 C on Saturday and 32 C on Sunday.
