Kitsap emergency weather shelters have been open for 23 nights in two months
Kitsap County's four overnight emergency shelters have been open for 23 nights in two months, with nine nights in November and 14 nights in December as of Thursday.
The county's four severe weather shelters — Village Green Community Center in Kingston, Port Orchard United Methodist Church, Gateway Fellowship Church in Poulsbo, and Silverdale United Methodist Church — have been activated to host those in need for nine successive days since Dec. 14 as temperatures dropped and severe weather conditions continued in Kitsap County. As of this week, all four shelters were able to find volunteers to open the facilities, but more volunteers are needed to maintain the program, county officials said.
The severe weather shelters are activated when the National Weather Service forecasts the overnight temperature to reach freezing or lower than 32 degrees at the Bremerton National Airport, when there is snow on the ground, heavy rain, or when high winds are expected during a 24-hour period.
Each shelter has a group of dedicated volunteers who help set up beds and make sure people in need have a warm place to sleep at night. But especially during times when the shelters were open many days in a row, it can be challenging to find volunteers, said Kirsten Jewell, Kitsap County Department of Human Services Housing and Homelessness Division Manager.
"Everybody just gets tired out and it's a real stretch for each one of those shelters to get volunteers to open," Jewell said of the circumstances when shelters are activated for multiple days.
Nine continuous days weren't the longest period of time the emergency shelters were activated. In January 2019, the shelters opened for almost the entire month to help people to get warm on the extremely cold winter nights, Jewell said. The county's severe weather shelter program was launched in 2008.
More:'Unprecedented' severe weather shelter activation stretches volunteers
As of Dec. 1, the four shelters this winter have hosted 173 "bednights," or numbers of guests, meaning the total number of guests multiplied by the number of nights the guests stayed at the shelters, which could be more than the number of people the shelters have served when a guest stayed more than one night. The Port Orchard United Methodist Church hosted 62 guests, followed by 61 guests at the Silverdale United Methodist Church, 42 guests at the Gateway Fellowship Church in Poulsbo and eight guests at the Village Green Community Center in Kingston during the 10 nights the shelters were open between Nov. 1 and Dec. 1, according to the Jewell.
A significant number of guests visiting the shelters this year shows that the service is meeting a critical need, said David Rasmussen, a spokesperson for Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management (DEM).
Volunteers of the program received training from county staff through the DEM and are official state emergency workers. Those who are interested in volunteering can fill out an application at https://www.kitsapdem.com/programs/volunteer/.
When the shelters are activated, the locations in Port Orchard, Poulsbo and Silverdale operate from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., and the shelter in Kingston is open between 6:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. Those who need information about the Severe Weather Shelter program can call 211 or visit www.kitsapdem.com
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Kitsap emergency weather shelters have been open for 23 nights in two months
