Welcome to the CRESA Emergency Management Blog. In the past 24 hours, we have received a surge of over 150 new subscribers to the blog thanks to recent coverage in the Columbian. We appreciate the community response and sincerely hope the trend continues so that we can quickly reach out to you with key information about emergencies and preparedness relating to our local community. So, share this blog with your friends and family and continue to help us get the word out.
Today is only Tuesday and yet there is so much that I could share with you.....
At 8:35 a.m. this morning, my staff received an "exercise" message informing them of our need to evacuate the CRESA operational facility. Five staff and I packed up everything from paper & pencil to computers, phones and radios and we made our way to our pre-identified back-up location. This was a first back-up center drill to see if we could become fully operational and we were successful. Within 90 minutes (which included a drive time of about 20 minutes), we were able to set up an "Emergency Operations Center" capable of managing a significant emergency incident.
At 10:25 a.m., the planned "exercise" was interrupted by a "real life" emergency support activity. 9-1-1 Dispatch contacted a duty officer to conduct a live community notification of local businesses in the area of 8th and Broadway where an armed robbery had occured at the Bank of America. This "real" opportunity allowed us to test our remote ability to notify the community of some key information regarding suspect identification and the robbery.
If you aren't familiar with our local Emergency Community Notification System (ECNS), here is a brochure we developed with some additional information about the system.
Emergency Management has also recently produced its July quarterly Newsletter called the "Situation Report" which outlines some of the fun planning and preparedness activities. These newsletters are shared with many of our emergency responders, although likely also contain content that might be of interest to you! Backlog issues are also available on the CRESA website if you are interested.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Bledsoe
EM Manager
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