Lynnwood presented a revised city annex to Snohomish County's Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP) on Oct. 20, clarifying how the city will prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters and updating the metrics and reporting the county will use to assess community impacts.

DC Steichen, Lynnwood's Emergency Management Director, said the annex is a required five-year submission to the state and a part of the county's overall plan that will be forwarded to FEMA for approval. He told council that the annex sets out departmental responsibilities, succession and Emergency Operations Center (EOC) activation levels and new reporting templates for community lifelines used by state and county emergency management.

"This annex is significantly different than the annexes we've been putting together for the last 20 or 30 years," Steichen said, citing new FEMA templates for incident reporting and standardized "community lifeline" metrics such as water, power, transportation corridors, and sheltering needs. The city's annex identifies 13 prioritized hazards (earthquake and tsunami among the top rated hazards for broad impact), assigns departmental roles for preparedness/response/recovery, and lists partner organizations, from Snohomish County and Sound Transit to the American Red Cross and newly partnered Snohomish County Fire and Rescue.

Steichen described ongoing work to reconstitute Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training and to establish community points of distribution (CPODs) for food and water, stressing that the city relies heavily on volunteers and nongovernmental partners for large-scale sheltering and distribution. He also noted administrative requirements for FEMA reimbursement after a declared disaster, including detailed documentation of response hours, volunteers and expenditures.

Councilmembers asked operational questions about specific vulnerabilities and capabilities. Council member Decker asked whether a tsunami could indirectly affect Lynnwood by causing residents from lower-elevation communities to funnel through Lynnwood and strain streets and wastewater infrastructure; Steichen agreed that impacts on transportation corridors and the wastewater treatment plant's chemical storage (notably chlorine) were plausible secondary risks.

Council member Hirst and others asked about amateur (ham) radio operators; Steichen said a dedicated group of about four to six licensed operators regularly test radios with the county and state and can provide communications redundancy, and that the city has a newly outfitted radio room at the EOC. Council members also asked about adult family care facilities inside the city; Steichen said Department of Health licensing governs many provider requirements (including generators when medically required) and that the city maintains updated lists through permitting staff but that the list is a "moving target." He estimated nearly 100 such facilities in the city when last reviewed.

Steichen said the annex also outlines the concept of operations (authorities in RCW and local ordinance), EOC activation levels (monitoring, partial, full), emergency declaration procedures and post-incident after-action and mitigation steps. He invited council to schedule elected-officials emergency-management training; council members expressed support for a basic four-hour elected-officials class and periodic tabletop exercises. The annex draft was submitted to council for review and will be part of the county submittal process.