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A plan to evacuate special-needs people
Nov 11, 2008 (The Gazette - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
If a wildfire roared through Black Forest or Fountain, how would the residents get to safety?
Most, with adequate warning, could drive themselves, but hundreds of residents with medical problems would be incapable of saving themselves.
El Paso County officials will devise a plan to warn, evacuate and care for residents of nursing homes and assisted living centers as well as those who live independently but have disabilities.
"What keeps us all awake at night is a large wildland fire, and unfortunately fire doesn't wait for you to do something, so you have to be prepared," said Patty Baxter, El Paso County's emergency manager.
The evacuation plan will be paid for by this year's allocation from the federal Department of Homeland Security, which will be giving $1.1 million to El Paso County and the four other counties in the state's south central region.
The consequence of not planning for the worst was tragically evident in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast and evacuation faltered.
"Senior living centers, hospitals, hospice -- during Katrina, those populations in some cases were left behind and forgotten," Sheriff Terry Maketa said.
Maketa said the county has a general evacuation plan, but it doesn't address special-needs people.
"What if you have to move them out of the area?" he said. "Where do they go? If it was up to us to update the plan and develop the plan, we wouldn't have the resources to do it."
The county plans to spend $80,000 on the Department of Homeland Security-funded study. While it will take into account the small number of retirement and nursing homes in the county, its primary focus will be people living independently who can't get out on their own.
Baxter said officials think there's a large population which for various reasons, such as blindness or not having a car, would need assistance.
It's impossible to know how many that is, said Guy Dutra-Silveira, director of the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging.
"We don't really have that number pinned down," he said.
The plan will cover warning, evacuation and care, Baxter said.
"How do we notify a deaf person?" she said, especially if that person doesn't have a special telephone line or the phone lines are out of commission because of the emergency.
Evacuation plans will rely on a registry the county hopes to build with the help of Pikes Peak United Way. The registry would enable officials to e-mail a list, with addresses cited on maps, to emergency workers of where these folks live, she said.
Lastly, Baxter said how those people will be cared for, if they don't have relatives here, must be figured out. She noted the Red Cross, which often runs emergency shelters, isn't allowed to house people with medical needs, such as those on dialysis.
The plan won't include Colorado Springs because it's working on its plan to be completed early next year, said Bret Waters, the city's emergency operations director.
The Homeland Security grant will also pay for training in dealing with improvised explosive devices.
Maketa said IEDs have come to be associated with the Iraq war, but they also include a pipe bomb in a mailbox.
"We come across them all the time," he said, estimating the bomb unit is called at least six or seven times a year for improvised explosives.
Maketa credited the Homeland Security Department for getting hazardous materials and bomb experts up to speed, noting the agency has funded equipment the city and county couldn't afford, such as decontamination trailers, field-testing equipment, a bomb vehicle and robots and a mobile command center.
"The difference is like night and day," he said.
Other homeland security projects include a wall around the Colorado Springs Police Department operations center, which has not been built, and a $246,000 armored vehicle.
Homeland Security allotments began after the Sept. 11 attacks and have declined since El Paso County's region received $4 million of the state's $30 million allotment in 2004.
This year, the region got $1.1 million of the statewide total of $20.7 million.
HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING SUMMARY
$138,800 Full-time coordinator and quarter-time planner for one year.
$99,000 A half-time training coordinator for 18 months and 100 days of training by contractors.
$200,000 Colorado Springs' catastrophic incident planning, resource inventory, shortfalls, cooperative agreements.
$80,000 Special-needs population plan.
$356,963 IED response: $186,738 for Colorado Springs; $96,520 for El Paso County and $73,705 for Teller County.
$217,649 Communications equipment for Chaffee County.
$33,786 Grant administration and oversight.
To see more of The Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.gazette.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
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