An emergency preparedness forum brought together several Great Falls and Cascade County agencies on Wednesday night to discuss issues from disasters to public involvement to emergency alert systems.
Representatives from Great Falls Fire Rescue, the Great Falls Police Department, the Cascade City-County Health Department, the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. National Weather Service, Cascade County Disaster and Emergency Services, and Malmstrom Air Force Base were on hand to offer insight into the efforts to prevent, address, and resolve situations in the city and county.
July 2016’s Vinyard Fire and recent area flooding were referenced by several representatives as examples of emergencies when agencies came together and when additional resources were needed.
In major instances such as the Vinyard Fire, which burned about 15,000 acres on the north end of Great Falls and caused fire officials to make a statewide mutual aid call to departments as far as Helena and Sunburst, a CodeRED alert will be issued.
CodeRED is a free notification service provided to all Cascade County residents that will notify you of emergency information through phone calls, texts, and the CodeRED Mobile Alert app.
The alert encompasses missing children, evacuation notices, criminal activity, wildland fires, and weather emergencies.
“We can get tornadoes, we get severe thunderstorms, we get severe winds, we can get severe blizzards,” Megan Syner, a forecaster with the National Weather Service, said.
Syner explained the NWS will coordinate with other agencies to provide the public with the information they need to stay safe in a severe weather event.
“If it’s imminent and it’s gonna happen, we’ll send out a CodeRED,” Cascade County DES Coordinator John Stevens said.
Aside from the alert, a few representatives stated the importance of staying away from emergency scenes. Lieutenant Doug Mahlum with the Great Falls Police Department said protecting yourself and your family is the best action to take in an emergency rather than trying to see what’s going on.
“We might have a SWAT call out or a crash or whatever it might be, the last thing we need there is additional people because we have to have resources that help deal with those people as well,” he said. “So coming to take a look to see what’s going on doesn’t help us in any way, shape, or form.”
CCSO’s Scott Van Dyken agreed and added that about 100 people stopped their cars at a blind corner to watch law enforcement conducting a river operation on Wednesday.
GFFR Fire Chief Steve Hester said non-emergency calls to the dispatch center during a critical event is not helpful either.
“The dispatch center is designed to take emergency calls,” he said. “I’ve stood in that dispatch center on a busy night and then something happens, it’s just absolutely bonkers.”
The dispatch center handles both the city and county and receives between 100 to 200 calls in a 24-hour period.
According to Stevens, one of the most important pieces of the puzzle is the Cascade City-County Health Department, which not only handles situations while they’re occurring, but after the emergency has initially been resolved.
CCHD Health Officer Tanya Houston told the audience the health department coordinates with other organizations in order to prepare them for potential disasters. She believed the outreach and response to June’s flooding was better than previous years.
Brian Wilkinson, an emergency manager with Malmstrom Air Force Base, said that although the Base is its own community, they also make sure they are a part of Great Falls and Cascade County.
“We do a joint operation to make sure we’re all on the same page. Ultimately our community and the county have to be on the same page to make sure all of you are ready,” he said.
In order to better prepare the public, events such as Saturday’s child safety fair are held. The event runs from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. on September 29 in the Old Navy parking lot at 1601 Marketplace Drive.
Earthquake preparedness also takes place in the coming weeks with the Great ShakeOut scheduled for 10:19 a.m. on October 19. MAFB and Great Falls Public Schools will conduct exercises for the event.
October 9 also marks Fire Prevention Week in honor of the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire that occurred in 1871.
Wednesday’s emergency preparedness forum was hosted by the Electric and co-moderated by KRTV’s Margaret DeMarco.
