Be Prepared! Emergency Preparedness in Wahkiakum County

Most of you have heard the Boy Scout’s motto – Be Prepared. It’s as simple or as complex as each individual would be comfortable with. For some, it’s a case of Top Ramen and a means of boiling water; for others, it’s heavy equipment and a 53-foot container buried in the backyard and filled with dehydrated biscuits ‘n gravy. The needs of others might fall somewhere in between.

Either end of the spectrum, most would agree, is just fine; however, it’s the lack of preparation for an eventuality that is most concerning. What eventuality, you ask?

“There are some emergencies we experience every year,” said Austin Smith, Emergency Management Coordinator for the Wahkiakum County Sheriff’s Office / Department of Emergency Management. “Flooding on the West End is one. Severe storms and high winds during the winter months knocks out power and causes landslides onto the roadways. We [the county] usually end up with an Emergency Declaration at least once a winter from one of these types of disasters. He continued, “Now we’re starting to see more things like wildfires in the summer time. I don’t want to say [wildfires] are a new hazard, but it’s not something we see overwhelming our county resources.”

Earthquakes, Smith said, are another concern for residents of Wahkiakum, perhaps not tomorrow, but at some point in the not-too-distant future. “The Cascadia [earthquake] is going to be a regional problem, but it will affect us here, too.”

In talking with Smith, it quickly became evident there’s quite a bit involved when one hears the phrase “Emergency Management.” Simple, yet complex; however by breaking both the agency and the activities and responsibilities of the agency into smaller, easily digestible parts known as the Four Pillars of Emergency Management, the concept becomes very clear. Those pillars, or the foundation upon which Emergency Management Services rests, include:

Preparedness: The act of being prepared for any eventuality, e.g. natural or manmade disaster such as flooding, severe storms, wildfires, or acts of terrorism. “I encourage everyone,” Smith said, “to be (at least) two weeks or more ready. Make sure you and every member of your household, pets included, have sufficient food, water, medicines, and hygiene items to last for at least two weeks.” Small kits, e.g. Go Bags, he continued, containing the necessary items can be readied in advance should the need to evacuate arise.

Mitigation: Smith said, “This is anything one can do to lessen the impacts of a disaster.” For example and in the case of flooding, one might build dikes and install tide gates to lessen the impact on a community. Wahkiakum County, as does every county, has a mitigation plan, which then enables the county to apply for funding for projects such as dikes, roads, or the retro-fitting of existing buildings and structures for the purpose of earthquake survival.

Response: This element, Smith said, is akin to that provided by the county’s volunteer fire departments and ambulance/medical personnel, as well as those law enforcement professionals employed by the Wahkiakum County Sheriff’s Office. These, along with others in the same vein, put the “response” in first responder.

Recovery: “Building back the community after the event,” Smith said, “and ensuring resiliency in the event of future emergencies.”

For the individual residing in Wahkiakum County – you, me, our neighbors, friends, and colleagues – three of the four pillars, those being mitigation, response, and recovery, are achieved perhaps best as part of an integrated collective such as a team of volunteers, a law enforcement office or agency, and a person skilled in grant writing, with the finances received directed toward mitigation efforts. But it’s the first – Preparedness – that is the responsibility of everyone, be it me-myself-I, a family, or an organization such as the members of a house of worship.

Where to begin? With four steps, Smith outlines.

Be Prepared. There’s that Boy Scout motto again. “The main thing I would encourage folks to be concerned with is one, be at least two weeks ready. There is all sorts of information provided by state emergency management, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other entities that I can get to folks in terms of being “two weeks ready.” Essentially, he continued, “this means being prepared at home for at least two weeks. Think food, water, medications…there’s a whole list of things you should have, and I can get that information out to people.

Sign up for emergency alerts “I would encourage everyone,” Smith began, “to know how to gain access to accurate and timely information. We have ECNS, the Emergency Community Notification System that’s operated through Hyper-Reach (hyper-reach.com). It’s a subscription-based platform that you have to sign up for in order to get alerts but it’s how I would reach people to let them know what’s going on. Do you need to shelter in place? Do you need to evacuate? There’s also social media, and Emergency Management does have a Facebook page. There is the potential for a lot of misinformation on social media, so I do encourage people to not necessarily listen to everything that’s out there, but focus more on the source. Such as official information from the fire departments or sheriff’s office.

Make a plan: Here, Smith starts with the family unit or the individual household. “Make sure you’re two weeks ready, as we discussed,” he said. “You know how to get accurate and timely information, and it’s from a reliable source. And then have a plan in case you’re told to evacuate, i.e. where are you going to go and who are you going to let know you’re there. Start small, and once you’ve made your plan and you’ve tested it, then talk to your family. Your neighbors. Your friends. It’s about communicating with people.”

Exercise that plan: “If you don’t exercise [practice] your plan,” Smith said, “you don’t know if it’s going to be effective until you’re in the midst of a situation where you’re putting your plan into action during an emergency.

“Doing it [in an emergency] is very stressful,” said Elochoman Valley resident, Shirley Rheault. With long-time local connections and deep ties to the Long Beach Peninsula, Rheault, along with her husband, Jerry, spent two months in the Boistfort Valley in 2007 helping residents there

involved in the technical,” she said, “The planning. The organization. And we got them back on their feet in just eight months.” Smith speaks highly of Rheault and the skills she brings to the proverbial table in terms of helping with his emergency management duties. “She contacted me and said she was happy to assist in any sort of emergency management planning that we had going on,” the coordinator said. “And I’m always accepting of others’ input and assistance from volunteers.”

Many might think this notion of emergency management is something best ‘left to the professionals,’ folks such as Smith and Rheault and a long list of others, many of whom are headquartered at the county courthouse on Main Street in Cathlamet. There are, however, a long list of things the general population can do to assist management officials such as Smith, Sheriff John Mason, and others. “Be prepared,” said Smith. “That’s number one. The second thing is to be willing to volunteer. We may need to set up shelters to relocate people should they have to evacuate their homes. The main thing, though, is the more folks who are prepared, the less need there’s going to be on providing services. And that, he continued, “is going to help our (Emergency Management) response, so that we can focus on putting their fire out, so to speak, than going door to door and making sure people are ready.”

One of the ways all people can help those at Emergency Management is by becoming part of a Neighborhood Community, a network of folks living within proximity to one another by whom and through whom information can be shared and collective actions taken before, during, and after an emergency. “What we’re trying to do,” Rheault explained, “is organically ‘grow’ neighborhood communication networks. It’s one more step from the household being prepared expanded to where the neighborhood is able to help one another while they’re waiting for assistance to arrive. We need to be able to rely not only on ourselves, but on each other in this small tight-knit community.” To this end, Wahkiakum County residents will in the near future receive information, planned by U.S. Mail, regarding the development and growth of this fledgling community preparedness program, and inquiring as to what role they might play in this most vital communication system.

For more information on the hows and whys of Emergency Management in Wahkiakum County,

visit the agency’s website at co.wahkiakum.wa.us/198/Emergency-Management. From the site, Coordinator Smith can be contacted both by phone and by email. “There is a lot of good information online,” Smith said. “And I have links to resources on our county website. The state’s emergency management website has a ton of preparedness information. And, of course, you can contact me via phone, email, or text. I will be glad to point people in the right direction regarding how to prepare themselves.”