City of Oldsmar, Florida Disaster Prep, 31 Dec 2015

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From YouTube: Prepare to Survive - El Niño | Addressing Citizen Needs

Description

Are you prepared for unexpected weather from El Niño this winter and early spring? In this special edition of Prepare to Survive, Pinellas County Assistant County Administrator John Bennett discusses how residents can prepare themselves for a weather emergency and how they can connect with their local government for help. Ray Neri, past president of the Lealman Community Association, will also talk about what individuals can do to get their own family and home ready for an emergency.

Check out all six segments of Prepare to Survive – Special Edition El Niño here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2oRjtRi088Dl-HLroX7jEoovAg1mlvnf

For more information on El Niño, visit http://www.pinellascounty.org/emergency/El-Nino.htm

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Libby: welcome back to this special edition of "prepare to survive.", I'm libby bolling with pinellas county communications.

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We've been talking about the possible threat of bad weather due to the el nino effect predicted for our area. This.

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Winter and spring.

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and joining me to talk about what citizens may need during an.

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Emergency and how pinellas county and its partners can.

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Address those needs is john bennett, assistant, county.

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Administrator with pinellas county., thank you for joining us. john:, absolutely. libby: and ray neri, past president of the lealman.

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Community association. thank you for joining us, ray. ray:, our pleasure. libby: now,. As past president of the association, you've lived.

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In lealman, a majority of your life, haven't you?.

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Ray: 63 years., libby: yes,, yes.

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And you've been telling me that lealman is a wonderful.

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Community, and you've experienced a lot of interaction.

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With your citizens there.

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and during an emergency,, what have you experienced that people need more information, about?, ray: well,? I think in general, the population of pinellas.

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County has a lot of misinformation about what.

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Happens when these storms hit and what's available., they just simply don't know., they don't realize how much the county has invested in getting this information to them.. I know you have websites,, but it's just unbelievable.

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They can even pick it up on their cell phones. Now, when.

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Something is coming at them that they're not aware of.

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libby:, um-hum.

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And, john, we're here to help pinellas county citizens,.

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John: absolutely.

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Libby: so,, what types of programs do we have in place to help residents of communities like lealman?, john: well,? The first thing to understand is: we are a community.

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Of communities in pinellas., our outreach is probably the most important..

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It's getting the message out as we've just eloquently, heard.

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I think it's important to understand. We have to use different mediums., so we can be on the top tier of preparedness in pinellas county,.

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But if we can't get that to our partners,, our citizens,, whatever.

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Aspect they are in -- work, home, play --, you know,. When we look at something like el nino,, there could be spontaneous weather issues that come out. -- tornadoes.

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Overnight it could get extremely cold., so we have to make sure that we address all aspects of all.

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Communities. and really,: that's why we need to bring our partners into these.

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Conversations with us to make sure that we understand their needs, no matter what area of pinellas county they live, in,.

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No matter what the demographics are,, whatever the socioeconomic status, is or might be,, and make sure that we touch all those.

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Points., it's kind of a discovery to make sure that we get there..

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If you look at a lot of the severe weather incidents that.

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Have occurred historically around the nation,, even the last couple of decades,. It's always certain communities that seem to suffer the most, and that's what we're trying to avoid here in.

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Libby: and we've had a little experience with some extreme weather last summer, late july, early august,, where we.

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Experienced some heavy rain that persisted over several days.

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And it created some areas of flooding.

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and pinellas county responded with providing sandbags and the.

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Resources for that.- and I know we partnered with lealman as an area of.

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Distribution., can you talk about that?.

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John: sure.: we wanted to make sure that we could get on the front end of preparedness by meeting our partners in the middle.

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and the middle turned out to be some of our great county. Parks..

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And so we looked to distribute the opportunity to get sandbags.

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From three locations inside the county to make sure that our.

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Citizens that felt like they could use sandbags for localized.

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Flooding could actually protect their homes.

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And we think it worked well. you know,. We gave out well over 10,000 sandbags in a very short.

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Period of time., but we want to even do better than that.. We want to make sure that the technology that's in use today.

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In pinellas, county can actually help forecast some of those.

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Areas, and we can get a little more surgical about our preparedness information going out to the community.

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And whether that's through mediums like what we're doing now or other outreach events or other ways to communicate.

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Through our trusted partners,, we want to ensure that everybody.

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Is prepared no matter what time of day, no matter, what type of.

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Hazard that would affect our urbanized county.

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Libby: and, ray, in lealman,. I know that some folks aren't.

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Connected to the internet,, let's say., how can we reach people like that?.

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Ray: well,, we have a great deal --. We have a big database.

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If we know it's coming,, we can do it., our cpos will go door to door and do warnings.

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It's easy when you've got a group.- you just put the word out in one place, and it just goes through it like wildfire., but the big danger is that we have been lucky for so many.

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Years in not getting hit., and so you get complacent.. So when you hear the warnings,, you think it's another one of.

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Those., I can tell the people that if they ignore what is happening now with the big el nino, that's coming, that they are going to.

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Be dealing with tornadoes,, something that we don't normally deal with..

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We can deal with high wind because we're used to that.

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but we're not prepared, really, to handle tornadoes., so you'd better get the information. You need to survive this stuff,, otherwise you're going to be in serious trouble.

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libby:. So you would encourage people to sign up for emergency.

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Ray: again, get signed up for every bit of information. You can.

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Get your hands on.

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Libby: and I know that you've been working with emergency.

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Management planning for el nino..

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We had sally bishop on earlier in the program..

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But could you recap some of the planning and preparation of.

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Emergency management?, john: sure.

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And specifically, the el nino,, what we're trying to do is break down the outcomes that can happen from el nino and kind of.

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Deconstruct those and say to ourself in pinellas county,.

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How can we get our citizens ahead of those issues?.

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Or how can we make them on the front end of the season be.

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Prepared for potential water intrusion, from,, you know,.

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Excessive rain in an already saturated community?.

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By making sure that they know where to get the sandbags.

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or if they want to go out and use private opportunities through other vendors to secure their homes., so that's one aspect.. We wanted to talk and use some outreach through our fire departments to use their possibilities of engagement.

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And education for some of these portable heaters that sometimes.

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Get used and can accidentally catch a house on fire where.

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Everybody is sleeping,, plus the carbon monoxide protection.

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So, again,: it's just making sure that all of our partners,.

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Whether it's fire, law enforcement on the first-responder, side, or emergency management on the preparedness side, do every bit of outreach. They possibly can.

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Because, while a weather event can be somewhat of a surprise,.

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A tornado at 2 in the morning without a weather radio could be very dangerous to a community..

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We know el nino is coming because we have the experts, tell us so., we don't create the weather plan.. We just try and react to it., so we don't want to be in response mode in pinellas county., we're always prepared to respond,, but we don't want to be in response mode.. We want to be in prevention, mode.

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and the way we can prevent things from -- these bad outcomes,, no matter what community we're talking, to,.

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Is to make sure that they understand the effects of el nino,, what can happen, and what they can do for.

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Low-Cost options to make sure that they are prepared.

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And then should they get into response mode, like what we saw in the summer with the floods, that they are prepared to shelter in place for maybe a day or two and have the right.

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Sustenance in the home for them and maybe their pets., and if they had to evacuate on the front end or even on the back end of some minor localized flooding that impacted their.

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Area, that they would know how that process would work..

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We just want to stay out of the reactive stage as much as possible.

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Libby: exactly. and keep partners like ray.

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John: absolutely. because,, you know, reverberating the message through key partners.

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you know, government typically has x number of employees that.

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Are dedicated to these kind of opportunities,, but yet when we.

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Look at our partners,, you know,, that's a first multiplier.

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And then, when they talk to other leaders,, that becomes another multiplier. and we work our way down to everybody's living room,, which is really the goal. Here. libby: yes.

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Ray: there may be --. I hope they have a checklist that people can get their hands on so that they can go through it.

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If you're going to have to be relocated,, be sure that you get.

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Your medications on that list., you don't want to be going without that. libby:, exactly. ray: and if you are in a hurricane area --, I mean,. If.

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Your house is near trees,, especially oaks,, and you've had.

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A lot of rain and you didn't pay somebody to thin out the.

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Foliage, that could very well wind up on the top of your.

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House., all you have to do is thin, it out a little bit, and it makes a big difference.

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Libby: yes, it does. well, thank you, gentlemen, for joining us today.

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If you'd, like more information about preparing for the threat.

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Of extreme weather and the el nino effect, visit pinellas.

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County's el nino website at:.

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Thank you for joining us, and remember to.

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"Prepare to survive.".