Sacramento County adopts a new extreme weather plan. Will it change shelter access?

Sacramento County now has more comprehensive guidance on when to declare temperature-related emergencies. But it might not have much effect on the opening of extreme weather shelters for homeless people exposed to life-threatening conditions.

After a summer of record heat and numerous weather-related deaths in past years, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors changed the Office of Emergency Services’ guidance to better and more frequently declare extreme cold and extreme heat alerts and emergencies.

The plan uses phases that escalate with temperature, including increasing public awareness in preparation for cold or hot times of the year. Latter phases include the interdepartmental coordination and the opening of heating and cooling centers. It does not require that these thresholds are hit before the opening of the temperature shelters. The shelters are meant for the general population, and the one most frequently opened is located at Creekside Adult School.

“There are actions that are taken by many departments under normal weather considerations,” Mary Jo Flynn-Nevins, chief of the county’s Office of Emergency Services, said. “And in significant inclement weather, many departments will take additional actions.”

The new plan follows the death of at least four homeless people in a winter storm in February 2021. Neither the county nor the city of Sacramento opened shelters during that storm — though county officials did activate its motel voucher program, which provided 100 rooms each night “on any given night,” according to county officials.

Flynn-Nevins, said that had the new model been used last year, the shelters would have been opened more frequently but she did not release an estimate of how many more days.

“I think that this just helps the Office of Emergency Services pull the trigger a little bit earlier on convening coordination between all of the different players and making decisions about whether they need to activate as an office of emergency services,” county spokeswoman Janna Haynes said

Haynes said the decision to open the shelters depends on a mostly wide range of considerations about the temperature and weather rather than a set guidance, and that ultimately cities and individual departments have discretion over the opening of shelters.

The new plans vs. the old

The old plan for an extreme heat emergency relied on the heat index, which only uses high temperatures and humidity thresholds, requiring 105 degrees Fahrenheit with nighttime lows of 75 degrees or more for more than 3 consecutive days, unusual human or animal deaths, or temperatures combined with long-term power outages.

The new plan introduces new factors that would give decision-makers better data on temperature that will allow them to make decisions days in advice, making it easier for people to seek shelter as Sacramento approaches expected excessive heat.

For heat emergencies, instead of the index, the county is introducing a so-called Experimental HeatRisk Model, which uses a wider range of data points to determine risk rather than specific temperature thresholds. It includes time of year averages, duration of heat, forecast temperatures, heat health thresholds from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, and climatology.

This model is also adaptive, according to Flynn-Nevins. She said that you might expect to see warnings at lower temperatures in May than in July when people have had time to acclimate to the weather.

The new protocol also uses warnings from the National Weather Service as a reason to prompt alerts and emergencies. These new changes result from a partnership with the NWS.

For a cold emergency, the old plan required weather forecasts of extremely cold weather for more than three consecutive days including “abnormally low daytime temperatures” with lows of 32 degrees or less at night, unusual human or animal deaths, and temperatures combined with long-term power outages.

For cold emergencies, they now incorporate probabilistic data, allowing for earlier decision-making. Now emergency criteria include there being at least a 50 percent chance of reaching 32 degrees or lower over 3 days.

This story was originally published June 18, 2022 at 5:25 AM.