Hooper emergency-preparedness volunteers seek city support for trailer, outreach and Everbridge alerting

Volunteers leading Hooper’s emergency-preparedness effort updated the City Council at the Sept. 18 meeting on an emergency-response trailer, training plans and outreach tools, and asked the council to authorize modest procurement and improve city support for publicity and storage.

Dave Harris, Hooper’s emergency-preparedness specialist, described a recently acquired trailer stocked with protective equipment and incident supplies and said volunteers need a covered, secure place to store it and a plan for outfitting it. “We need to step up, as a city,” Harris said, asking for clearer attention from the city to make the program operational rather than it remaining a volunteer-only “club.”

Why it matters

Volunteers said the trailer is intended to provide short-term, local resources in a natural disaster or other mass-incident scenario until external assistance arrives. Because county and state responders may be stretched during a large regional event, the volunteers said local readiness could matter for several days after an incident.

Key requests and logistics

Volunteers asked the council for three practical items: (1) a secure indoor or covered bay to park and maintain the trailer (it currently sits behind a private home), (2) authority to spend down small amounts for adjustable racking and brackets as the trailer is outfitted, and (3) help connecting Hooper to Weber County’s Everbridge critical-event alert system.

Staff and council guidance included procurement limits and billing procedures. A city staff member said purchases normally within budget and under city procurement thresholds can be executed quickly but that council approval is used for larger sums. Volunteers said they plan to be frugal, use county-supplied resources where possible and accumulate equipment over time.

Outreach, training and FEMA certification

Volunteers said they will promote CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and other training with a QR-code flyer and suggested offering CPR/AED training locally even when FEMA-certified CERT classes are held offsite. Volunteers asked the city communications staff to give emergency preparedness a visible place on the municipal website and to post event notices and training opportunities to increase participation.

Volunteers asked the council to help make the county’s Everbridge system available to Hooper so the city can send high-speed, targeted alerts to residents. Harris said the county moved to Everbridge in July and that he would coordinate with the county’s emergency management director to get Hooper added.

Ending

Council members thanked the volunteers and directed staff to work with the emergency-preparedness team on storage options, procurement steps under the city budget and adding preparedness links to the city’s website. Volunteers said they would return with plans for racking, training flyers and a proposed procurement list for equipment and material.