BC emergency programs failing evacuees, volunteers: Ombudsperson

Emergency Support Services volunteers help residents evacuated during an emergency like a home fire. But they are also called upon to help evacuees during prolonged climate disasters. 📷 Mission Fire Rescue training video

Two years after 2021’s atmospheric river and wildfires, some British Columbians continue to wait for financial support and the help they need to rebuild.

BC’s Ombudsperson delivered a new report Tuesday that declared the province’s emergency support programs are built upon the backs of overworked volunteers and unable to handle the current frequency of today’s prolonged and recurring climate-driven disasters. BC Ombudsperson Jay Chalke said the province must overhaul its emergency systems to help those who will need them in the years to come.

Chalke’s report is a damning indictment of two key programs BC relies upon to help residents during and after emergencies: Emergency Support Services and Disaster Financial Assistance. In his review, which focused specifically on responses to the 2021 flooding and fires, Chalke found two “outdated, under-resourced, inaccessible” programs.

He wrote that the current system creates barriers for people desperately in need of help. The review says volunteers face confusing communication and institutional roadblocks that make getting help much harder than it should be.

The system is dependent on volunteers, many of whom don’t just work a day or two but often weeks or months with no pay and relatively little support.

There is some good news: on the same day Chalke released his report, the provincial government introduced new legislation to overhaul the province’s emergency management framework. It has also launched a new task force to provide suggestions on how to better improve emergency and wildfire responses.

But Chalke also sounded a note of warning: while the legislation may be an important step, it’s just one of several that are needed. Chalke warned that many of the flaws he found in his review won’t be fixed by changing the provincial legal framework that organizes disaster response. On-the-ground changes are also needed, as are more resources to deal with the increasing workload created by the prolonged disasters.

“The legislation takes you so far, but there’s still more work to be done by policymakers,” Chalke said.

3 takeaways

Long waits

Chalke said evacuees faced confusing processes and encountered “unreasonable” delays to access help.

At the outset of his review, the ombudsperson and his office distributed a questionnaire among residents who were displaced and trying to access help.

The most-common complaint from those affected people was about the lengthy waits faced by evacuees trying to register at reception centres.

Evacuees wrote about facing huge lineups outside of buildings with little indication of what awaited them. Wildfire evacuees wrote about being stuck in the heat and sun for long periods of time. Others wrote about sleeping in vehicles in parking lots while they waited in line.

The delays created more problems for people and some gave up altogether.

“There was at least a four hour wait at the reception centre even though we had pre-registered,” one person told the Ombudsperson. “The place we were staying was an hour’s drive away and we had two trailers full of farm animals we couldn’t leave parked for four hours or more while we waited.”

Some people are still waiting for help. Nearly one-quarter of those surveyed said they encountered delays in getting the support they needed from the Disaster Financial Assistance Program, which provides vital financial aid to help disaster victims cover expenses not paid for by insurance. Those who are deemed ineligible, for whatever reason, can appeal. But Chalke said some of those people are still waiting to learn if they’ll get the help they need.

“It’s unacceptable that two years after an event, when people are applying for very much-needed financial assistance to rebuild after an emergency, that most of those people, their appeals are still pending.”

Volunteer dependent

Chalke’s report hailed the work done by volunteers to help evacuees at their greatest time of need. But it suggests that the government’s systems are letting down both the volunteers and the evacuees they are helping.

“Limited resources, staffing and an over-reliance on volunteers leaves the provincial programs unable to effectively support evacuees,” Chalke writes.

The programs, he said, are designed to deal with rare and short-term emergencies. But BC is increasingly seeing climate change-caused disasters that require long-term and ongoing support.

In 2022—after the fires and floods—the province released a new “program guide” that dictates how the province responds to emergencies. It reinforced the idea that the core functions of ESS are delivered by trained volunteers or contractors.

Asked by The Current if that guide needs an overhaul, Chalke said he reviewed the document and that it was “a good start” but that more would need to be done to improve ESS responses.

The report released yesterday is less equivocal about the reliance on volunteers.

“We heard that in some communities there were not enough trained volunteers available to register and finalize ESS referrals for the large number of people seeking help at the same time,” the report said. The provincial expectations of volunteers also seemed to exceed their capacity.

The province said volunteers are trained to be able to register evacuees in less than half an hour. It uses those figures to plan its responses to emergencies. But the ombudsperson heard that the process usually took between 45 minutes and 60 minutes. Sometimes it takes even longer because evacuees may be distressed or confused.

Many volunteers were left feeling unsupported in their work while they persevered through disaster after disaster. But Chalke warns that a lack of support is likely to lead fewer to return when the next disaster strikes.

Chalke’s report said that in some centres, volunteers worked 13-to-15-hour days “for weeks and sometimes months on end.”

Some volunteers worked (for free) all summer, then returned when the atmospheric river hit.

“The widespread scale of the weather events and their long duration put an enormous burden

on the shoulders of local volunteers, and this contributed to a feeling of burnout and a declining number of volunteers willing to participate in the ESS program,” the report said.

A new challenge

The system needs reforming, Chalke said, because today’s emergencies are not like those from decades past.

BC’s old system used a “one-size-fits-all” approach focused on delivering vital support days after an emergency and long-term aid later, if needed. But climate change is creating large-scale, long-lasting and recurring emergencies that cause such an approach to fail.

“Many of our programs are not built for today’s climate reality, and not by a small margin,” Chalke told reporters.

The ESS program is built to deliver aid to people for 72 hours. But, he noted, 90% of those who used ESS in 2021 needed assistance for longer than three days.

Similarly, volunteers are needed in such places not just for a couple days, but for long periods.

The government said it has accepted all 20 of the ombudsperson’s recommended improvements and actions. It’s unclear, though, whether the government will fully commit itself to addressing the problems contained in the report.

One of Chalke’s suggestions was to develop a program for “more meaningful provincial recognition” of the work done by ESS volunteers. The province said it accepted the idea, then pointed to an annual award ceremony for such volunteers. It also asked the ombudsperson for more information on the “evidence base” for the recommendation.

Chalke expressed skepticism as to whether an award ceremony is enough reward for the volunteers carrying much of the provincial load when it comes to helping evacuees.

“When one thinks about an award ceremony following a couple of days of work, one can imagine that, to a volunteer, that appears to be adequate,” he said. “But we heard about people who were working 15, 16, 17 hours a day, seven days a week for months on end as volunteers.”

He continued:

“What we expect of volunteers is unlike what was expected in the past, and climate change has changed the nature of volunteerism … Given this tremendous work and tremendous duration dealing with people who are highly, highly stressed … more needs to be done.”

You can read the full report here.