Thompson Rivers University responds quickly to the needs of the forest fire evacuees from Lillooet.

The call to evacuate the Fraser Canyon community went out early Sunday evening. Gerard Hayes, Director Ancillary Services contacted residence managers, On-Campus Housing, Mark Woloski and TRU Residence and Conference Center, Michael Ching’anada.

READY AND WILLING
Food, housing, RV space, showers, meeting and gathering spaces were made available to support the Emergency response teams working with the evacuees, with campus residences and food preparation well underway in time for the first arrivals at 11 pm.

“Lillooet is an important part of our TRU community, so when the call came to us to help, we just stepped in to do what we could, ” said Dr. Kathleen Scherf, President and Vice-Chancellor”. We have tremendous staff and facilities here and it’s our privilege to be able to offer TRU’s full support in assisting in this emergency.”

Lillooet residents receive updates from officials during a town hall meeting at the Alumni Theatre.

“Fortunately for us the kitchen staff were here preparing for the 250 young basketball players – so feeding the extra people was not too difficult, ” said Gerard Hayes, Director Ancillary Services. “On Monday morning, we served the evacuees breakfast and continue food service for meals in Heroes Pub.”

By Tuesday morning 140 people were housed on campus, with more trickling in throughout the day. More that 20 evacuees have been accommodated in the TRU Residence and Conference Centre, making use of some of the facilities barrier-free suites. The basement of the gym has been setup to accommodate 90 more evacuees if . to Hayes, “They will have full shower facilities in the gym and importantly, have accessible food service and be close to all the amenities that are located near the campus.”

Forestry officials, TNRD, RCMP, City of Kamloops Mayor, Lillooet Mayor and the MLA for the area held a town hall meeting in the Clock Tower Theatre last night stressing the serious nature of the fires. The residents of Lillooet were told that they could be out of their homes until the weekend.

EVACUATION ORDER
The evacuation order remains for the Lillooet District east of the Fraser River. For information on evacuations within the municipality of Lillooet call 250 256-3069, for lands outside the municipality call 1-866-417-4132. Any inquiries can be directed to the main entrance to the gym, where an Emergency Social Services desk has been set up. If you are concerned about the whereabouts of a particular evacuee call 1-877-865-3606.

Update: August 7, 2009

At noon on Thursday, August 6 the residents of Lillooet where given the word they could return their homes on an evacuation alert order.

Contact: Gerard Hayes, Director of Ancillary Services Thompson Rivers University
(p)250.371.5660, (e) ghayes@tru.ca