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Story County emergency management outlines snow response, Stop the Bleed rollout and $80,700 grant for charging stations
Summary
Emergency management reported heavy snow responses, placed dozens of Stop the Bleed kits and secured an $80,700 grant from the Iowa Economic Development Authority to build portable solar charging stations for communities, officials said Dec. 9.
Melissa Spencer, representing Story County emergency management, told the Board of Supervisors on Dec. 9 that recent snowstorms and blizzard conditions over Thanksgiving and the prior weekend kept staff busy and underlined the importance of county communications.
Spencer said county social media reached nearly 1,000,000 views in the previous 14 days related to weather responses. She summarized the "Stop the Bleed" effort led by deputy coordinator Josh Harding and Story County Public Health partners: the county placed 123 additional wall-mounted kits in public-facing buildings and installed 167 smaller kits, said Spencer, and trained more than 300 people. The county also distributed 20 training kits for ongoing instruction.
Spencer reported emergency management received an $80,700 grant from the Iowa Economic Development Authority to build portable, solar-powered charging stations that will be distributed to communities (one per community) and can be linked together to provide power during prolonged outages.
She said staff are coordinating an emergency operations center remodel, including audio-visual upgrades, and are working with Story County IT on options for a low-cost or no-cost virtual emergency operations center to address potential access issues during prolonged events.
"Being able to charge computers, phones, medical devices continues to be a gap," Spencer said; the grant-funded charging stations are designed to help close that gap.
Spencer acknowledged that the new equipment will not completely solve all outages but said the county hopes it will help close critical capability gaps during extended power losses.
