Pottawattamie County Emergency Management plans sixth annual preparedness fair

Pottawattamie County Emergency Management will bring local agencies and organizations together for its sixth annual preparedness fair in Council Bluffs as part of National Preparedness Month in September.

The fair will be held near the Emergency Management office at 5 S. Main St., directly in front of the Council Bluffs Fire Department, while the Council Bluffs Farmers Market is taking place nearby. Public safety agencies, nonprofit organizations and other groups that assist residents during emergencies will participate, with games, free food, giveaways and raffle prizes also planned. Emergency Management Specialist Gabe Barney said the event has drawn between 200 and 300 people in recent years and is intended to give residents an easy place to find answers before an emergency occurs. “If you have these conversations with your family and say, ‘We don’t really have the warm and fuzzy for what we need to do or what we need or what if something happens,’ this will bring all those resources together,” Barney said.

September is National Preparedness Month, and Barney explained that the timing gives his office an opportunity to remind residents about planning at a point when severe summer weather may be slowing but other potential problems remain. Wildfires, water outages, power failures and eventually winter weather can all create emergencies, while dry conditions during harvest season can increase the danger of fires across rural areas. “Now is a great time for you not only to refer to your plans, whether for your business or your family, but start having those conversations,” he noted.

Barney pointed to the Narrows wildfire several years ago as an example of how a fire can affect people well beyond the location where it begins. Smoke became severe enough during that incident to shut down an interstate, and a large future fire could require evacuations or other emergency measures. Pottawattamie County residents are encouraged to register for Alert Iowa so they can receive notifications when significant events affect their area.

Emergency officials also recommend that families maintain enough supplies to get through at least 72 hours. Barney said preparedness kits can be kept both at home and in a vehicle, with many of the same items useful in either place. Water, medications and copies of important documents should be considered along with equipment that may be needed specifically while traveling. Families should also include the needs of elderly relatives, neighbors who may require assistance and household pets when developing their plans.

Knowing where family members will go and how they will contact one another can be just as important as having supplies available. Barney said those conversations are often difficult to start because people do not naturally spend much time thinking about disasters when nothing is currently wrong. That can leave families trying to make important decisions for the first time while an emergency is already underway. “The hard part about this profession in general is people don’t realize that a disaster is prevalent until it happens or that it’s a big deal until it happens to them,” he explained.

Tornadoes are familiar to most people who have lived in southwest Iowa, but Barney said the same principle applies to emergencies that may receive less attention. Wildfires, water outages and power failures can happen with little warning, and a problem involving one system can quickly create additional difficulties. A water outage, for example, may affect pump stations, boil orders and other services, making it important for emergency managers to consider how one problem could lead to another.

That overlap also means preparation for one emergency can often help during another. Barney said his office tries to plan for as many possibilities as possible, even while recognizing that no plan can anticipate every circumstance. The goal is to have basic procedures and resources in place so residents and responders are not starting from nothing when something unexpected happens.

The preparedness fair is intended to help residents begin that process in a setting that is less intimidating than trying to figure everything out during an emergency. Information will be available on family planning, emergency supplies, public safety resources and other services people may need following a disaster. “Preparedness is a hard one to push. It’s not always the flashiest subject,” Barney acknowledged. “But we’re trying to do our best to make sure that people consider all those resources in front of them so they know what they need to figure out before a disaster hits.”