In Case of an Emergency...

This past week, I have spent time in two separate meetings dealing with emergency planning. The first meeting was on Wednesday. This meeting dealt with developing a multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan for Benton County. The second meeting took place yesterday to discuss how to prepare for the activation of an emergency shelter in Vinton. As we have seen over the past couple of years, emergencies are not just something that might happen, but rather a thing that will likely happen. We have had two situations (ice storm in February 2007 and the 2008 flood) severe enough to have a shelter. I feel good about the processes we have started with these meetings since we will likely have more emergencies in the future. Some might think that it is not good to discuss the likelihood of these types of events because it only scares people. Well, if the event will probably happen, like we have seen so far, then only by discussing the events now, will we be better prepared to handle them in the future.