Lethbridge’s vulnerable brace for the cold

The first blast of winter is a brutal time for Lethbridge’s most vulnerable.

“You’re looking at a lot of frostbite, a lot of medical distress, what are you supposed to do,” said Paul Piedalue.

Piedalue lost his home and has been staying outside since April, this is his first full winter on the streets.

“Once it goes below minus 10, it’s just too cold even with heat in your tent,” Piedalue said. So far, he’s relied on winter camping training from his high school days to get him through the frigid nights, but Sunday, he hit his limit.

“I’d had enough, I woke up freezing cold and it was just too much. I was in tears, I was completely emotionally drained,” recalled Piedalue.

While he feels he’s dressed for the conditions, he worries for his vulnerable friends.

“A lot of people are building structures out of garbage that they find, cardboard boxes and things like that. I don’t know how anyone can live in a cardboard box,” said Piedalue.

Tia Fox with Blood Tribe Family Community Support Services explains when it gets this cold, shelters like Moses Lake, outside of Cardston, teeter on exceeding capacity.

“It has been picking up especially right after the Christmas holidays. We’ve just been seeing quite a bit of people coming in and needing assistance and support,” said Fox.

The capacity of Moses Lake Shelter is 20. Fox advises if people need assistance, there is a second shelter on the Blood Reserve operated out of White Calf Hall.

The City of Lethbridge said the temperatures won’t quite meet the threshold for its extreme cold response protocol this week.

However, David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, warned this could be the worst we see.

“The temperature is going to change from record warm to perhaps maybe the coldest temperatures of the entire winter,” said Phillips.

With the first dump of snow of 2024 over the weekend, the city has declared snow routes.

Parking enforcement officers are circulating and ticketing cars parked along snow routes.

1:46 Supporting the vulnerable as cold weather, snow hits Lethbridge