Four years after horrific B.C. heat dome: improvements, enduring risks, and no plans for a memorial

Four years after hundreds died in extreme heat, CTV News looks at how the province has adapted its response – and if more changes still need to be made.

The full scale of the death toll of Canada’s deadliest weather event has never been visualized or adequately expressed, and CTV News has learned that British Columbia’s government has no plans for a permanent memorial to commemorate the victims four years after their deaths.

In a statement, the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness acknowledged the 619 deaths “deeply affected communities and people” across the province, but said it’s focused on “building a future that is more resilient to all emergencies, including extreme heat,” and a monument isn’t on the table.

This, despite warnings from various stakeholders and meteorologists, poor communication to the public, a provincial government distracted by the lifting of pandemic restrictions, a lack of planning by BC Emergency Health Services, and a remarkable underestimation of the possible death toll.

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At least 619 people died starting in late June of 2021 as a rare heat dome trapped hot air over much of the west coast of North America, prompting record-shattering temperatures in British Columbia early in the season – including unusually high overnight temperatures. The heat arrived suddenly, before anyone had time to physically adapt, and that confluence of factors saw 98 per cent of fatalities take place inside homes, with victims predominantly poor and elderly.

Lessons learned, but gaps remain

In the months that followed, a coroner’s report identified many of those issues, while government reviewed the errors at various levels and agencies, prompting a re-working of the extreme heat response plan and the establishment of what’s now called BC HARS: BC Provincial Heat Alert and Response System.

It’s been updated annually since 2022 and lays out when emergencies will be declared and what steps will be taken. In the warmer months, a committee that includes stakeholders from meteorologists to doctors meets daily to discuss potential risks based on the forecast. Public communication has improved considerably since that time as well.

“Despite all the things that have been done since the 2021 heat dome, we still hear from seniors who are raising concerns around extreme temperatures,” said Dan Levitt, British Columbia’s seniors advocate, about extreme temperatures.

“There’s still confusion around how to get notified about heat warnings, not sure when to leave their homes, unsure where the location of cooling centres might be.”

The bigger picture and the long-term

Several analyses have already taken place to determine how to mitigate the death toll in future heat waves, which UBC researchers hope can be eliminated entirely with adequate planning, resources, and recognition of who’s most at risk.

“Policymakers, health authorities, researchers, have made many noble efforts like the BC Hydro’s free air-conditioning program and such, and these are going to lead to fewer deaths, but we ultimately want to aim for no deaths,” said Liv Yoon, an associate professor at UBC and co-author of a new report titled, “Too Hot to Think Small: The Case for a Right to Cool in British Columbia.”

In it, Yoon and her co-authors advocate for co-ordinated, long-term policy decisions that take poverty, isolation, medical issues and other factors into account when planning for climate-change-driven heat events that threaten the well-being and lives of thousands of people.

Mechanical cooling, like heat pumps and air-conditioning, are a major recommendation.

“It’s not a luxury, and it’s interesting to think of this in comparison to smoke alarms,” said Yoon. “When you move in somewhere, you don’t expect to pay more because there is a smoke alarm because it’s just basic safety, and I think with the changing climate, we need to think of cooling in that sense too.”

A weak foundation?

Few British Columbians remember that another heat wave had killed more than 100 people in 2009, and there’d been reports written, warnings made and recommendations in its wake.

They were largely forgotten well before 2021 brought hyperthermia back into the provincial lexicon, and B.C.’s top doctors acknowledged the planning for the forecasted heat was “not sufficient.”

In his first year in office, Premier David Eby told CTV News his administration would be taking a “systematic” approach to addressing extreme heat events, prioritizing the highest-risk areas, and that he knew there was more work to do.

• Read more: B.C. health officials acknowledge typical heat wave response ‘not sufficient’ for deadly heat dome
• ‘More work to do’: B.C. premier addresses extreme heat response and planning

Joo believes lessons have been learned since 2021 not just because the death toll was so exceptional, but also because “we are experiencing increasing, longer-lasting and more-intense heat waves, so we’re not going to have the option to forget about this.”