Temperatures in October dropped as low 27 degrees Fahrenheit in Eugene this year, according to the Weather Channel. The Egan Warming Centers, short-term emergency shelters in Lane County which open during cold nights have had to open their doors unexpectedly six times before their official season began on Nov. 15.
The Egan protocol states that the warming centers will be open any time that local temperatures drop below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, regardless of date or time. An activation notice is sent out to the public 48 hours prior, and is done before 6:00 p.m.
“When we have an emergency, and we call ‘extremely cold weather’ an emergency, then my job is to make sure that Egan Centers are ready to go,” said Winter Strategies Coordinator Tim Black. “The Egan season is officially Nov. 15 to March 31. Having said that, there was a cold spell that was in late October that kind of surprised everybody.”
In October, Black said that there were nights that were unexpected, and that coordinators like him had to scramble in order to ensure that people had a place to go.
“The city of Eugene and the county asked us if we could run the Wheeler Pavilion as an Egan Warming Center,” he said. “Instead of 8 or 9 spread out around Eugene and Springfield, we had everybody in just one space. It was a lot of people in one room. That was early, and we were able to do it just because they gave us the site.”
But it’s not just Eugene that’s has been experiencing extreme weather. July was the hottest month in global recorded history, and there are now record-breaking low temperatures in parts of the United States.
In the midwest and northeast, there has been an influx of snow and below-freezing temperatures, according to NOAA. However, the Oregon Department of Agriculture predicts that spurts of cold weather are “most likely to occur from late-fall through early winter (prior to mid-January),” and that Oregon will likely get “progressively-drier weather in January and February” of 2020.
“Having this activation now, early in our season, I don’t know. You never know what the weather’s going to do,“ said Black. “The most [nights] that the Egan Warming Center has ever been open in a season is 26. The program has only been around since 2009, so I don’t know if what that average really is anymore – that may be something we may want to recalculate after this year.”
Regardless of the weather that Eugene will be enduring, the Egan Warming Centers and their workers are determined to be open as many times as needed to accommodate those without shelter.
“We will open every time that the protocol says we should open, regardless of how many times it is,” Black said. “No matter how we need to make it work, we’re going to make it work so that our guests have a place to be.”
For those who would like notice of when each warming center is in activation, the Egan website is updated often. For those who would like a text notification, Black urges locals to text the world “ACTIVATE” to 292929 to be a part of the alert system.
“It’s good to remember the community that you’re a part of. Our unhoused neighbors are part of the community,” Black said. “That’s really what Egan is here for.”
