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EMA director briefs commissioners on flood response, grant delays and CodeRed issues ahead of public meeting
Summary
EMA director Boyd White updated commissioners on frozen EMPG reimbursements, progress on hazard-mitigation updates, near-miss tanker incident during the winter storms and a planned Feb. 26 public meeting for recovery information; CodeRed outages prompted evaluation of alternatives.
Boyd White, Lincoln County emergency management director, briefed commissioners on Feb. 25 about ongoing recovery work after recent winter storms, outstanding grant and reimbursement issues, and operational lessons learned.
White said the county has not received EMPG (Emergency Management Performance Grant) reimbursements because a change to a federal fiscal-year start date prompted litigation and delayed disbursements; as a result the county has not been able to apply for reimbursements for work since July 1. He reported the county submitted updates to its hazard-mitigation plan and completed a courts-scoping project used during recent flooding.
White described a near-miss incident in December when a tanker truck rolled over near Savage Lake carrying about 24,000 gallons of fuel; he credited the Troy Volunteer Fire Department and mutual-aid partners for containing a small leak and preventing wider environmental harm. He also praised local public-health and road crews and said outside incident-management teams complimented Lincoln County’s response.
On communications, White said CodeRed’s service experienced outages and loss of iP certification that hampered alerts during the incident and that staff are exploring an alternative platform (Genesis) that staff estimated could cost about $3,000 less annually. White said the county is planning training, volunteer-management and ICS-300 courses for staff and partners to improve readiness.
White reminded commissioners about a public community meeting scheduled Feb. 26 at 6 p.m. in the Ponderosa Room for residents affected by the winter storms; he said the meeting will include county, state and federal partners and aim to answer questions about recovery assistance, permitting and available resources. Commissioners thanked White and his staff for the response work and encouraged residents and affected property owners to attend the meeting.
