Preparedness group works to educate community for disaster
Floods, fires, earthquakes and many other disasters could happen at any time. It’s good to be prepared.
That’s the mantra of the Bigfork Emergency Response Team and its founder, Dr. Bruce Nelson of Bigfork.
For the last few weeks Nelson, Cheryl Richmond, Mark Noland and several others have been organizing the first Bigfork Preparedness Fair to educate the public on various ways to be prepared for emergencies.
“If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail,” Nelson said. “Basically, we want to get prepared to take care of each other.”
BERT has been getting the word out in the community about the fair by assigning tasks to each church in Bigfork should an emergency occur and government assistance be unavailable. For example, the Baptist church will be in charge of sandbagging, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been placed in charge of communications.
Nelson would like to get as many Ham Radio hobbyists involved as possible because some major catastrophes could take out normal methods of communication like cellphones and land lines.
Focus groups will be formed at the fair. Each group will have four goals while gathering information on each emergency topic.
First, review the information on preparedness from other communities, groups and individuals.
Second, study the references or guides on how to set up and maintain various types of preparedness programs that could be used in Bigfork.
Third, interview government agencies and other communities with preparedness programs to see which ones might be recommended for BERT.
Lastly, take recommendations for leadership roles and committees, map out the hazards in the area and expand the message platform to include economic issues and recovery from disaster.
As of March 15 BERT has 11 residents offering their skills for the fair. This list includes the following:
• Trish Ervin - Cooking with wheat
• Olaf Ervin - Home guard and preparedness food, and flooding
• Ed Mathews - Fires and command tent
• C.J. Woff - Ham Radio
• Mary Westerman - Candle making, canning, and preparing seeds in the ground
• Lana Nelson - Food storage and milk
• Chris Corrigan - Outdoor cooking and Dutch ovens
• Kim Moss and Julie Hall - Bees
• Clark Herron - Milk that can be left on a shelf
• Adam Grigsby - Container gardening
The Bigfork and Ferndale fire departments, representatives from The United Way, The Army Corp of Engineers and more are among a growing list of other resources for the fair.
“There are a lot of people with backgrounds in things that we don’t know about,” Nelson said.
According to Nelson a similar group exists in Lakeside.
The Bigfork Preparedness Fair will be held at Bigfork Elementary School on May 5.
BERT is currently seeking residents with preparedness related skills to share at the fair.
To get involved, write to BERT at PO Box 85, Bigfork MT, 59911.