No cold-weather shelter for the Sault

Ward 3 Councillor Matthew Shoemaker's push for an emergency warming shelter in Sault Ste. Marie got a mostly frosty reception at Monday's City Council meeting.

"Discussions with Social Services reinforce that current infrastructure does and will continue to meet the needs of the City’s vulnerable populations," Lauren Perry, the city's emergency management coordinator, said in a report to Mayor Provenzano and councillors.

"Shelter is available at all times including during extreme cold weather, however it is the individual’s decision whether to utilize these resources," Perry said.

"I think this is a major need in our community," Councillor Shoemaker said on Jan. 22 when he asked city staff to prepare a cold-weather response plan to protect vulnerable Saultites from extreme cold weather.

Shoemaker pointed out that the Sault's current emergency management plan only provides for warming shelters in the event of widespread power outages.

Both Sudbury and North Bay have designated emergency cold-weather shelters.

"It was minus 38 the other day when I drafted this motion," Councillor Shoemaker said in January.

But minus 38 is a couple of degrees short of the threshold used by Environment Canada to determine when extreme cold warnings need to be issued in the Sault.

"Criteria for Sault Ste. Marie is a temperature of -40°C or a wind chill of -40°C," Perry said.

"Information provided by Environment Canada indicates that the Sault Ste. Marie area has experienced eight days of extreme cold over the last 10 years."

"There is not a response plan in place, however a response procedure for sheltering vulnerable populations does exist with the not-for-profit emergency shelters of Pauline’s Place and St. Vincent’s Place."

Perry said an attempt would be made to increase community awareness when temperatures plummet.

In the future, the city will issue advisories about Environment Canada extreme cold weather alerts to the following:

• Social Services
• Pauline’s Place
• St. Vincent’s Place
• Soup Kitchen Community Centre
• Canadian Mental Health Association
• Sault Ste. Marie Police Service
• Sault Ste. Marie Fire Services
• Central Ambulance Communications Centre
• news media

However, Councillor Shoemaker and his Ward 1 counterpart Steve Butland expressed concern about Environment Canada's 40-below threshold for Sault Ste. Marie.

"It seems to me that's awfully cold, as a baseline," Shoemaker said. "I would have thought that we'd hit that number eight times this year, not eight times in the last 10 years."

"Why have a policy that's never going to be implemented?" Butland added. "I don't think we've had one day this winter when it was minus 40."

Perry indicated that consultations could be held with Algoma Public Health to determine whether -40C is truly the temperature at which humans first face serious elevated risk of frostbite or hypothermia in Sault Ste. Marie.