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Chaffee DHS staff helped stand up evacuation site for Lake County wildfire evacuees
Summary
Chaffee County Department of Human Services deployed staff to a temporary evacuation site for Lake County evacuees and coordinated with Red Cross and the county EOC; officials said the response was a timely ‘dry run’ that revealed workflow improvements for future incidents.
Chaffee County Department of Human Services staff mobilized to assist Lake County evacuees during a recent wildfire, standing up a satellite evacuation site where residents could access services and salamander cards, county staff said.
"We were able to stand up an evacuation site there where residents were coming in from being evacuated to obtain their salamander card," Melissa (DHS) said, describing Red Cross coordination and daily DHS support while shelters were advanced. County officials said DHS staffed the site from initial response through the week, then kept a standby shelter in case conditions changed.
The report to commissioners emphasized intercounty mutual aid and after-action learning. Melissa said the county had used the episode as a real-time exercise: staff reviewed Red Cross trailers, supplies and the county’s tracker system with the emergency operations center to identify gaps. "We were able to do kind of a dry run of sorts ... and iron out a few things on our own before it would even be in our thoughts for it being our own kind of emergency," she added.
Commissioners thanked DHS staff and noted follow-up planning already under way with the fairgrounds and the county EOC. County leaders said they would continue to monitor the shelter status and ensure written updates are provided to the board when incident-command staff are deployed elsewhere.
