WEST POINT – If the Mayan apocalypse – or even just a bad power outage – happens in 2012, West Point is the place to be.
In the past year, West Point and surrounding communities have rallied to vote in a tax to keep professional firefighters on staff at the fire department, arranged to have a Red Cross emergency supply trailer stationed in town to speed the opening of evacuation shelters, trained volunteers to be able to open those shelters, and scheduled a communitywide emergency drill set for April.
The end result is that residents won’t have to wait for government relief workers to arrive, but they can set to work helping each other immediately during a disaster.
How did this happen in a remote region with high unemployment and fewer than 9,000 people scattered across hundreds of square miles of rugged forest terrain?
“It’s knowing we had a problem and figuring out who could do something about it,” said Steve Wilensky, a former firefighter who represents West Point on the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors.
The problem: Many isolated homes where residents could be trapped by blizzards or wildfires and the potential for long waits as distant government agencies marshal resources to help them.
One of those who helped figure out what to do is Dennis Lewis, a retired Lodi police officer who now chairs the Blue Mountain Emergency Preparedness Committee.
“We’ve been working on it for a number of years,” Lewis said, adding that Wilensky approached him more than six years ago. Since then, more than a dozen volunteers have stepped forward to form the core of the committee.
Those panelists and others have completed a variety of training, including a Federal Emergency Management Agency-recommended course for Community Emergency Response Teams.
The committee and other entities have cooperated to integrate volunteers into disaster plans.
Some volunteers knocked on doors and distributed magnetized containers so medically frail people could have their health information available to medics in an emergency. Others qualified for Ham radio operator licenses and connected the equipment to backup generators.
And they held an abundance of meetings to learn how to coordinate evacuations and other efforts with state, federal and local authorities.
“With all of this training behind us, now it is time to do an exercise so we know what we are doing,” Lewis said.
The drill plans have not been finalized, Lewis said, but that one scenario for the drill in April could involve a vehicle crash and a very large leaking propane tank near homes in Wilseyville.
The goal would be to see if volunteers could quickly evacuate residents and set up a relief center.
“This is neighbor-to-neighbor helping on a little bit bigger and coordinated scale,” said Jim Carroll, the chief of the West Point Fire District.
That’s exactly what state and federal authorities encourage in communities everywhere.
“Generally, for the first 72 hours of a disaster, citizens are on their own,” said Suu-Va Tai, disaster program specialist in California Volunteers, part of the state’s Office of the Governor.
Full-blown FEMA-recognized Citizen Corps councils such as the Blue Mountain group are rare. FEMA’s registry does not show any in San Joaquin County.
Tai said there are 65 Citizen Corps councils in California, but more than 250 registered agencies that provide CERT training. In San Joaquin County, the Tracy Fire Department is registered as a CERT training site.
Although such training may be more common in urban areas, it is actually most needed in rural areas, say experts. And that’s what makes West Point’s achievement notable.
“For the size of their area, they are very, very prepared,” said Debbie Calcote, an emergency services coordinator for Red Cross Capitol Region Chapter.
Calcote laughs and agrees when she’s asked if West Point is a good place to be when the world ends. “The folks up there are very dedicated.”
Contact reporter Dana M. Nichols at (209) 607-1361 or dnichols@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/calaverasblog.
<a href="http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120117/A_NEWS/201170317/-1/A_NEWS14tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120117/A_NEWS/201170317/-1/A_NEWS14Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:03:23 GMT”>West Point ready for anything
Connecticut is not usually affected by hurricanes. In fact, when we see that a hurricane is coming up the Atlantic coast, we don’t pay much attention. By the time the storms creep their way up the Atlantic coast, they either move offshore or have lost their steam. We’re used to “nor’easters” and blizzards that sweep a few feet of snow on our doorsteps. We’re even used to the occasional tornado warning. Yet this August, we’re anticipating Hurricane Earl to visit from the Caribbean after wreaking havoc on the east coast.
