One way we can teach our community (using Emergency Management concepts)…..is flooded roadways. Yep, that’s right, we often have the general public drive their cars through flooded roadways and get into trouble, injured, or die.

So lemme break it down in our five phases of Emergency Management

Statement: One of the common emergencies Emergency Management see during heavy rains is flooding.

Mitigation: In past flooding, Emergency Management have identified areas that are susceptible for flooding that is unsafe for any safe passage under this bridge.

Preparedness: Emergency Management has painted a highly visible ruler on the bridge pillar to help public safety (or anyone) to address and evaluate the water levels.

Protection: By identifying the dangers, Emergency Management is better able to coordinate resources used to protect the public as we can now focus our efforts on barriers, caution tape, road closures, etc…

Response: During terrible weather, Emergency Management can share critical safety messages with the public and allocate more resources used to rescue individuals who did NOT heed the warnings.

Recovery: Thanks to proper preplanning, Emergency Management can reference pictures of this flooded area that can be leveraged against non-disaster time pictures which can provide good background for windshield surveys and damage assessments for state, regional, and Federal partners.

Boom.

Good way to improve the safety of your municipality.

Great way to enhance your operational coordination and recovery efforts.

Outstanding way to improve the resilience of your community.

Can you do this in your community? You sure can, just contact your local Emergency Management Agency for more details.

@rusnivek