I have collected a number of items identified in the Emergency Preparedness meetings on May 2, (BOCC morning meeting and the Road and Bridge homeowner's evening meeting). St. Mary's, Floyd Hill, EMERGE, Saddleback and Mill Creek Park were represented at Tim Allen's evening meeting.  Laura Nay is preparing a draft of the new State Emergency Operations Plan which should be available by late May. The plan is modeled after the Summit County plan and should address a number of the items below. I expect that the Public Safety Committee will review the new plan against the items discussed in our meetings.

1.  Communications Center Expansion

Our 911 Communications Center needs additional capacity and a new location to handle the current volume of 911 calls. The demands of emergency communication in the county exceeded the functional and physical capacity of the current center some time ago.  The Public Safety Committee has agreed that expanding the Communications Center should be a number one priority for all County Emergency Agencies and Municipal and County government. A summary is currently being developed by the PSC that tracks the county growth in 911 calls for the past 10 years as a result of gaming industry, ski industry and overall Front Range population growth. The data will show that Communications Center capacity has not kept up with 911 call demand. The summary will address the strength and weaknesses of the current center, evaluate the risks if shortcomings are not adequately addressed and provide the benefits of expanded capacity. The PSC will develop and recommend a number of solutions for the Communications Center to address immediate needs and future medium and long term needs.   

The Office of Emergency Management position for Clear Creek County needs to be a full time position in order to insure our emergency preparedness 365 days per year.  We may need to encourage municipal support to make the OEM position full time.  A follow up meeting with the municipalities was suggested. 

3.  Substitute for the Full time OEM Position

A substitute must be provided in the event that our full time OEM person is not available.  Establishing depth in our emergency response plan is a critical component.    

Our Emergency Operations Plan needs to be updated and adopted with private and public participation including county and municipal agencies, Red Cross, Salvation Army and other volunteers.  As stated above Laura Nay will be presenting the new state plan by late May. Once the plan is adopted, regular follow up meetings by either the Public Safety Committee or an Emergency Operations Sub Committee will be required to keep the plan current and encourage training and actual practice of the plan. Contact and Resource lists will also need to be kept current. All county EOP activities should be coordinated through one individual, (most likely the full time OEM person), which would include coordination with the county's municipalities, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and our official media outlets.

5.  County Emergency Resource and Contact List

A county wide database needs to be created and/or updated as part of the Emergency Operation Plan to maintain emergency preparedness.  Items to be included should be emergency equipment and volunteer resource lists, homeowner association member and officer databases, Emergency Operation Center procedures, EOC phone numbers, web site and email information, and the county emergency shelter plan.  GIS mapping data should be kept current and made available to our emergency agencies. The county should designate a single contact, (most likely the full time OEM person), to maintain this information make it available to the Sheriff's Department, Road and Bridge, the Fire Authority and Ambulance Department during an emergency event. Homeowners associations should be provided the county’s contact's name, phone number and email address, so that all relevant homeowners information can be provided to the county and updated.

6.  Qualify Resources Prior to the Emergency

Available equipment resources should be arranged prior to the emergency and a resource list should be readily available to the appropriate department incident commanders during an emergency, (Sheriff's Department, Fire Authority, Ambulance and Road and Bridge).  Equipment operators should be trained and qualified and added to the resource list prior to an emergency event.  During an emergency is not the best time to be arranging the acquisition of specialized equipment and operators.  The EOC should also have a list of the available equipment and volunteer resources, not for deployment purposes, but for tracking location and usage in order to provide information to county officials and incident commanders.  The resource list should be maintained and updated on a regular schedule by a single point contact, most likely the full time OEM person.

7.  Identify Agency Officials Authorized to Acquire Special Equipment

We need to clearly identify the emergency agency officials that are authorized to accept, insure and make arrangements for the transportation of additional specialized equipment for use in an emergency event.  This identification should be made clear prior to the emergency and should be noted in the emergency operations plan.  Specialized equipment allocation and usage should also be reported to the EOC for tracking location and usage in order to provide information to county officials and incident commanders.

The GIS database has been provided to Road and Bridge to give them a better mechanism for locating specific addresses.  A suggestion was made to provide Road and Bridge with the available aerial imagery database for the county.  The aerial images could be edited to put the street address number on the rooftops of homes, so that maps could be displayed or printed that quickly identify specific addresses.  This information should also be made available to the Office of Emergency Management, the Fire Authority, the Sheriff's Department and the Ambulance Department if they have the appropriate software licenses.

Silver Plume Addressing needs to be updated in order for our EPN telephone network to operate effectively.  It was suggested that Rick Gaubatz was going door to door in Silver Plume to update the GIS database.

If possible with HIPAA regulations, a medical needs database should be maintained by the county that identifies people with special needs in order to prioritize evacuations or the opening of roads in an emergency.  This database could be maintained by the Office of Emergency Management, (most likely the full time OEM person), and made available to the Sheriff's Department, the Fire Authority, Road and Bridge and Ambulance during an emergency event.

11. Annual Emergency Preparedness Mailing 

The county should provide an annual emergency preparedness distribution to all county residents, (a suggestion was made during Tim Allen's homeowner's meeting to have it included with the county tax notices each year).  The distribution would remind all mountain residents that they live in a remote area and should be prepared for emergencies beyond the Red Cross recommendation of 72 hours.  They would be advised to keep a supply of up to 10 days worth of prescription medicines, oxygen, nonperishable food and water at all times.  Appropriate County emergency phone numbers including the Emergency Operations Center would be included as well as web site addresses, radio stations and public access television stations in our municipalities for information in the event of an emergency. 

12. Low Cost Alternatives to EPN, (Reverse 911), for Non-Emergent Information Distribution 

We should develop a better mechanism for low cost non-emergent information distribution during an emergency event, (instead of using EPN).  Due to the expense of EPN, it should be used only for notification of a life threatening event or situation.  Homeowner's Associations throughout the county can share the burden of distributing information through their phone trees, email distribution lists and web sites.  A single phone call could be made to each association by a county official and the information could be distributed to homeowners by the associations.  The county web site, radio stations KOA and KGOAT and our municipal public access television stations can also be used to provide information during an emergency event.

A suggestion was made during Tim Allen's homeowners meeting that KOA be used as our primary radio station for providing county updates in the event of an emergency, since it reaches everywhere in the county.

14.  Emergency vs. Disaster Declaration

County officials need to better understand the difference between declaring an Emergency and declaring a Disaster.  In an emergency declaration, the duration of the event is expected to be within 48 hours and only 75% of the appropriate costs incurred during the emergency will be reimbursed by FEMA.  In a disaster declaration, the duration of the event exceeds 48 hours and the state is supposed to kick in 12.5% of the incurred expenses along with the 75% reimbursed by FEMA.  Of course there is no guarantee that a county disaster declaration will be accepted by the state.

15.  Establish the Emergency Operations Center ASAP

The Emergency Operations Center should be established as soon as possible in a major emergency event in order to relieve the 911 communications center of non-emergent calls and provide updated emergency information to county residents.  The role of the EOC should be clearly defined prior to an emergency event.  The EOC is not an Incident Command and does not need to be staffed with agency leaders.  The EOC is a clearing house for information and will need to receive regular updates from incident command and county department leaders and officials.  The EOC will provide updated information to the public through telephone calls, web site, email and radio and television media outlets.  EOC staff should have good communication and organization skills since they will spend most of their time either on the phone or tracking resources and updating specific county conditions.  A suggestion was made that we should model Summit County's EOC plan.

A phone number in the EOC should be dedicated to incoming media calls, so that the Denver media does not tie up all the EOC lines.

17. Emergency Shelter Plan 

An Emergency shelter plan needs to be developed for the county.  The plan should include the list of approved county locations, (schools, churches, Elks Lodge, Easter Seal Camp, etc.), parking availability, volunteer manpower for setting up and operating the shelter, the coordinating agency, (Red Cross or the Salvation Army), and the supply location and inventory, (cots, blankets, food).  Locations and supplies should be inventoried and maintained on a regular schedule to insure availability in the event of an emergency.  Multiple locations should be selected to cover the entire county.  Coordinating of all shelter activity should be the responsibility of the full time OEM person, however an EOC staff person could be assigned the coordination of emergency shelter activity during an actual event.

18.  CDOT Communication

We need to develop better communication with CDOT for the management of I-70 during emergency events.  Our Ambulance, Fire Authority and Sheriff's and Police Department people on the ground need to be kept informed of the changing status of the Interstate highway.  CDOT must provide accurate information on road openings and closures to allow our emergency agencies to be more effective in managing county emergencies. 

We need to develop a highway sweeping plan to locate stranded motorists in vehicles on the interstate and get them to shelters, if the State Patrol is unavailable.

20.  Emergency Employee Transportation Plan

A transportation plan should be developed to get volunteers and essential employees to the locations where they are needed during an emergency event. 

21. Additional Communications Infrastructure 

A disaster communications plan may need to be established which would provide additional radio infrastructure and perhaps additional cell phone infrastructure, (Cellular on wheels), to handle the increased communications demand during an emergency event, (especially an event on or near the Interstate highway).  Cellular coverage in the Upper Bear area of the county is also desperately needed.