Power Outage Tool

Kansas City Power & Light is an emergency preparedness partner in Johnson County. We work with them on a regular basis to improve our readiness during a event that causes significant power outages. They do, however, have a public website that can be viewed to determine where the power is out in Johnson County as well as the estimated restoration times.

If you go to www.kcpl.com and click on PowerWatch you can look at this information.

Integrated Warning Team

Personnel from Johnson County Emergency Management & Homeland Security participated with other regional emergency managers, the National Weather Service, and local television meterologists last week to establish a new concept called the Integrated Warning Team.

This team would improve communications between these three parts and ultimately with the general public. The three days were well attended by all three sectors and included nationally-renowed speakers who were experts in the public perception of weather-related warnings. Media representatives were present from all four major television stations in the Kansas City viewing area including Brian Busby (ABC) and Joe Lauria (FOX).

The Integrated Warning Team will continue to meet together in the future to understand how to continue to improve the emergency preparedness of all local citizens. Specifically, the partners discussed the best ways to use new communication tools available from the National Weather Service or through the internet (ex: Twitter).

Midwest Earthquake Preparedness Townhall Meeting

An earthquake occurs just about every day somewhere in the Midwest, yet many people in the Kansas City area may not know anything about them. Even though the chance of a damaging earthquake affecting this area is low, there is a need to be aware of the earthquake hazard that exists in Kansas and Missouri.

Several local emergency management partners in conjunction with FEMA and the Missouri and Kansas State Divisions of Emergency Management are providing a "town hall meeting" on February 19, 2009 from 6:00 - 9:00 PM to inform local citizens out local earthquake threat. The meeting will take place at the Platte County Resource Center at 11724 NW Plaza Circle, Kansas City, MO 64153.

The presentation will discuss specific planning that is taking place to help coordinate the response after a major earthquake in the Midwest, and steps you can take to better prepare for such an event. Regional, state, and federal officials will be available for questions about these topics.

Public Comments Needed

Johnson County Emergency Management and Homeland Security has been coordinating the development of a countywide mitigation plan that has helped identify and analyze risk to the community as well as how that risk can be reduced.

However, we need your help! The plan and related information is posted here. Please review the site and provide commentary and feedback to help us make the plan as effective as possible. Invite your friends, family, and coworkers who live in Johnson County to do the same.

This plan is a significant portion of how Johnson County prepares for emergencies and disasters.

In advance, thanks for your help!

NWS Winter Weather Video -- Current Conditions

The National Weather Service has posted this Winter Weather video about the weather conditions over the next few days. Let us thank the NWS for sharing this preparedness information.

Johnson County Emergency Management Welcomes New Staff, Part 2

Johnson County Emergency Management & Homeland Security would like to welcome Eric Matthews to the staff.

Eric was hired as a Resource Technician and is helping establish resource management databases for use in emergencies and disasters.

Welcome Eric!

Time for Public Severe Weather Awareness Training

Several people have asked for clarification related to the upcoming free public severe weather awareness training presentation. It is open to the public and will occur on February 4, 2009, from 7 PM to 9 PM at the Santa Fe Trail Middle School at 1100 Ridgeview, Olathe, KS.

Anyone from the public is welcomed and encouraged to attend to learn more about severe weather events. The presentation will by approximately two (2) hours long and is provided by a highly trained meteorologist from the National Weather Service. The presenter will discuss various aspects of severe weather including physical characteristics, storm spotting, and personal safety.

Emergency Management Welcomes New Staff, Part 1

Johnson County Emergency Management would like to welcome Chris Brantley. Chris was recently hired as the Emergency Management Planner and will assist in planning efforts throughout the county.

He recently graduated from Arkansas Tech with a degree in Emergency Administration & Management.

Welcome Chris!

New Intern

I'd like everyone to welcome Carlyn Fogle to Johnson County Emergency Management. She was hired as an intern for the Spring semester and is helping us create a stronger presence in the social networking communities such as Facebook and MySpace.

Follow her blog here.

Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT)

The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations.

Using the training learned in the classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help.

Many of you may already be active CERT members in your community. If not, programs are available in Olathe, Overland Park, Merriam, Fairway, Mission, Mission Hills, Mission Woods, Prairie Village, Roeland Park, Westwood, Westwood Hills, DeSoto, Leawood, Edgerton, and Shawnee. Many of these programs are seeking out new CERT volunteers to start 2009 off right.

For more information about CERT or any of these programs (including pictures, brochures, and contact information), visit here.

Upcoming Severe Weather Awareness Training Course

Johnson County Emergency Management & Homeland Security is offering a free public severe weather awareness training presentation on February 4, 2009, at the Santa Fe Trail Middle School at 1100 Ridgeview, Olathe, KS. Anyone from the public is welcomed and encouraged to attend to learn more about severe weather events.

The presentation will by approximately two (2) hours long and is provided by a highly trained meteorologist from the National Weather Service. The presenter will discuss various aspects of severe weather including physical characteristics, storm spotting, and personal safety.

For more information about Johnson County Emergency Management & Homeland Security, visit www.jocoem.org or subscribe to the Johnson County Emergency Preparedness Blog at www.jocoprepared.blogspot.com.

Training Provided to Regional Communicators

Communicators from Johnson County Emergency Management and the Kansas Department of Emergency Management taught a Basic Public Information Officer course this week for staff from various agencies in Johnson, Wyandotte, and Douglas Counties.

Media representatives from print, radio, and television were kind enough to come speak to the students to improve the necessary partnerships between government and the media.  

Representatives from KMBC (Ch. 9), KMBZ radio, the Kansas City Star, and KSHB (ch. 41) can be seen in this picture.

Public Input Requested on Hazard Mitigation Plan

Johnson County Emergency Management has been coordinating a countywide hazard mitigation planning process with many of the cities, jurisdictions, and districts in the County.  Two public meetings will be held to allow the general public to review a draft of the plan.  Additional information can be found on the Johnson County website at http://www.jocoem.org/hmp-comment.asp.  The meeting information is as follows:

Meeting #1:

Date: January 26, 2009

Time: 6 pm - 8 pm

Place: Sylvester Powell Jr. Community Center, Room A (West Side)

Meeting #2:

Date: February 3, 2009

Time: 6 pm - 8 pm

Place: Johnson County Community College, Carlson Center, Rm 211

Please respond with any comments on the plan by February 15, 2009.  Comments can be dropped off, mailed, emailed, or faxed to the following:

Nick Crossley

Johnson County Emergency Manager

111 S. Cherry St., Suite 100

Olathe, KS 66061

Fax: 913-791-5002

Email: ncrossley@jocogov.org 

In advance, we greatly appreciate your help with this project. Working together on projects like this continue to help make Johnson County -- A Community Prepared!

Reminder about Emergency Preparedness Survey

Thank you to all of you who have completed our Emergency Preparedness survey that was posted last month.  If you have not completed the survey, please visit here.  We will collect those results and share them in the near future.

Thanks for your time and interest!

Johnson County Helps Local Boy Scout Troop

Liz Ticer from Johnson County Public Health will be providing a presentation to a local Boy Scout Troop from the eastern portion of the county this Saturday as part of their efforts to acquire an Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge. Good luck Scouts and thanks Liz!

Safety City 2009

Emergency Managers and other response personnel from the entire Kansas City metropolitan area are coming together at the 2009 Kansas City Remodeling Show to host Safety City 2009. Safety City will profile and highlight the various emergency response sectors in the area including several Johnson County emergency services personnel. The show will be February 6-8, 2009. Come see us!

For more information, visit http://www.marc.org/emergency/safetycity/index.htm.

No Outdoor Warning System Test Today

As a reminder, there will not be a test of the Johnson County outdoor warning system today. The monthly test is not conducted in December or January, or any other scheduled test date when extreme cold and/or icing might damage the equipment. The next test of the Johnson County outdoor warning system will be February 4th, 2009.

Additional information on the outdoor warning system can always be found at www.jocoem.org/outdoor_warning.htm.

How do I respond to the Blog?

Many of you have had wonderful comments or questions related to content shared on the blog; however, there seems to be some confusion over how interactive the Johnson County Emergency Preparedness blog really is to the reader. If you view entries from the blog website (http://www.jocoprepared.blogspot.com/), you will notice a a bar at the bottom that looks like this:

This bar will tell you who posted the entry and at what time. It will also allow you an opportunity to comment directly to the post or email it to a friend. For instance, if you want to comment, you simply click on "comments" and it will take you to a second screen where you type in your response or comment. I would like to strongly encourage you to provide feedback this way if you have any thoughts about the post (feel free to agree or disagree). This is how a blog builds community and collaboration, which is one of the goals of this blog.

For those of you who receive updates to the blog via email, please keep in mind that if you reply to that email it is sent directly to me and is difficult to share with the entire community. If you want to be a part of the community, within the email click on the title of the entry and it will take you back to the actual blog website.

I look forward to hearing from you all!

Do you I.C.E.?

In case of emergency (ICE) is a program that enables first responders, such as paramedics, firefighters, and police officers, to help victims in need contact their important decision makers to obtain important medical information. The concept encourages people to enter emergency contacts in their cell phone address book under the name "ICE". Alternately, a person can list multiple emergency contacts as "ICE1", "ICE2", etc.

This is one of the simplest things people can do to be personally prepared. We strongly encourage you to consider embracing this concept.