FROM GARFIELD COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT-SATURDAY-9/30/17

Your forecast for today in case you don’t want to continue reading: Saturday-Partly sunny, with a high near 79. East wind 5 to 11 mph becoming south in the afternoon.

Saturday Night-Mostly cloudy, with a low around 58. South southeast wind 6 to 8 mph.

This has been a very active and deadly month for weather and natural events. Between hurricanes, earthquakes and our normal severe weather that we normally have, it brings to light our true level of preparedness.

WE ARE NOT ANYWHERE CLOSE TO BEING EITHER WEATHER OR DISASTER RESILIENT.

There are some out there that are extremely close but overall, my personal percentage for everyone is about 99% are not ready. I honestly feel I am close. I talk with many folks and you see it in their eyes when I ask how prepared are you and your family. Let me take this one step further. How well is your employer prepared? I ask these questions because they are very important.

I attended a 2 day of 4 mitigation class put on by OEM. I will take the last 2 days in about 3 weeks. Many things were brought up concerning hazards in the counties which includes all cities and towns. This statement says it all: Mitigation may be the most important phase of the emergency management continuum, because it’s the only phase with the potential to eliminate or reduce the need for the others. The other phases being preparedness, response, and recovery.
Just think, if we could focus on anything and everything that could harm us, fix those issues now, when an event occurs, the impact could possibly be very MINIMAL. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I was going to try and call a meeting of all stakeholders in emergency services, utility services, schools, business, hospitals, etc. early in October to discuss and hopefully implement new procedures to start this process of resilience. I am going to wait and complete this class first and then hopefully have a day long seminar. I would hope anyone and everyone who has any responsibility for human or animal life can attend.

Finally, after seeing all the disasters that have recently occurred, emergency responders can be easily overwhelmed and then who becomes an emergency responder? YOU!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!
MIKE