Walla Walla County explores long-term funding and facility options for extreme weather response

Walla Walla County commissioners on March 25 heard a workshop from the Department of Community Health about the county’s extreme weather response and the shortfall of sustainable funding to operate warming, cooling and clean‑air respite centers.

The briefing, led by Sam Jackall, Human Services Division Manager, described activation thresholds and operational partners, and said the county lost a state response grant this year, forcing staff to scramble to fund activations. "That's a significant number of individuals that were kept outside of the cold, that were kept safe, that were kept alive," Jackall said of the roughly 20 people per night who used the warming center this winter.

Jackall said the county’s local plan sets the warming‑center activation when air temperatures are 20 degrees Fahrenheit or below (or 25 degrees with precipitation) and that First Congregational Church operationalizes warming‑center activations from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Cooling centers are triggered for two consecutive days of daytime highs of at least 105 and nighttime lows above 75; cooling operations, when used, run 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. A clean‑air activation would begin at PM2.5 levels of 151 or higher and, per the current contractor application, would operate daytime…