City wants to help people prepare for disasters

Natural disasters know no boundaries.

Through Project Impact, Carson City and Douglas County officials hope to educate residents to potential disasters from floods to weapons of mass destruction -- and how to prepare for them -- in a free education and awareness forum on Thursday.

Titled "Surviving Disaster: What to know, how to prepare," the forum will feature discussions and literature on potential disasters to this area including winter storms, flooding, wildland fires, earthquakes and weapons of mass destruction.

"There's only so much that professionals can do in the wake of a disaster," said Liz Watson, Project Impact coordinator. "They're going to have to deal with a whole lot of different things. If the citizenry is prepared and educated to a point where they can take care of themselves, their neighbors and maybe the elderly lady down the street, that frees professionals to deal with the real big issues that are happening."

The event will feature displays and demonstrations in the lobby before and after the two-hour presentation by area disaster experts.

Roger Lamoni, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service, will present information on winter weather hazards from dealing with slick roads to avalanches. He said after years of outreach programs, he said he still hears people complain during a winter storm "I didn't know it would be that bad." Winter weather always has the potential to "cause property damage or injure or kill people if they're not careful," Lamoni said.

Gary Derks, state search and rescue coordinator, will discuss homeland security and issues from biological and chemical threats to bombs, no longer an unlikely reality after the events of Sept. 11.

"I think people need to know the vulnerability of our state and what we can do to prepare and to help prevent or get ready for any kind of 9-11 type event," Derks said. "You can talk about it, but (people) need to know not what the country can do, what the state can do, what the county can do, but what they personally can do to prepare themselves and their homes."

Also, the forum kicks off extra Project Impact educational opportunities. Sign-ups will be available for a business site assessment, where business will be able to have professionals between Feb. 18-22 spend an hour in a business recommend ways make it disaster proof, Watson said. Homeowners will be invited to two seminars in February on how to better help homes weather a disaster.

Carson City received a $300,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2000 to help the community to plan ways to help mitigate loss of property in a disaster. Carson City chipped in $100,000. So far, Carson City has spent more than $115,000 of Project Impact funds on improving the city's flood management system.

The city is in the middle of developing a storm water master plan to outline the city's future spending to protect the capital city from damage similar to that sustained in the 1997 flood. About $90,000 has been spent to help the Carson City School District's Safer Schools program, which provides information to students and parents about how the district will function in an emergency. About $15,000 has helped fund portable fencing and carriers to provide emergency pet shelters.

If you go:

What: Surviving Disaster public forum

When: 5:30-7:30 p.m., Thursday

Where: Carson City Community Center auditorium, 851 E. William St.

Information: (530) 577-6651, 782-6442 or 887-2100.