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Lincoln County EMA director outlines recovery status: grant delays, Code Red trouble, and mutual-aid praise
Summary
Boyd White, Lincoln County Emergency Management director, told commissioners the EMPG reimbursement remains frozen pending legal settlement, Code Red alerts recently failed and the county is evaluating alternatives, and flood response and mutual aid were praised for effective incident management.
Lincoln County Emergency Management director Boyd White updated commissioners Feb. 25 on recovery and preparedness work following recent flooding and wind events.
White said the EMPG (Emergency Management Performance Grant) reimbursement remains delayed: federal timing changes and lawsuits about start dates froze distributions, and the county has not yet received reimbursement for work done since the fiscal start date. White said he was monitoring court developments and had not yet been able to file for reimbursement.
He summarized work on the county hazard-mitigation plan, an ongoing scoping project connected to flood damage, and recent operational efforts: road crews, the county health department, volunteer fire departments, and mutual-aid partners were lauded for response performance. White highlighted a near-miss tanker rollover at Savage Lake that emptied 24,000 gallons of fuel; local volunteers contained the immediate leak and limited environmental damage.
White also discussed public-alert systems: Code Red experienced outages and a loss of iP certification during the incident, prompting the county to train on the restored platform and to investigate an alternate vendor (Genesis) that staff estimate could be about $3,000 cheaper annually. White proposed additional ICS training and exercises, and said a homeland-security grant application for a building-sized generator is planned to support future incident-management operations.
Commissioners commended EMA staff and mutual-aid partners and encouraged continued training and grant applications. White urged property owners affected by the floods to attend a Feb. 26 public meeting in the Ponderosa Room so state and federal partners can explain recovery resources and permitting constraints.
White’s briefing covered operational fixes, grant uncertainty, and next steps on training and infrastructure to improve resilience ahead of spring runoff and recovery work.
