Tulsa Disaster Mitigation Planning Meeting

[brob11]

6:30pm, Francis Campbell Meeting Room, 200 Civic Center, Plaza Level

The city of Tulsa is requesting input from Tulsa residents to help reduce deaths, injuries, disruption and destruction from tornados, ice storms, floods and other natural disasters.

A series of meetings is being held to allow the citizens of Tulsa to offer suggestions and express their concerns regarding future disasters that sooner or later will have an impact on Tulsa. "It's not a question of if another disaster will hit Tulsa, it's a question of when" stated Bill Robison, Special Projects Engineer for the City of Tulsa.

[mrhaskellok]

Question: What can a government do to help mitigate risks of natural disasters?  

Answer:
(1) Get out of the way of those who are trying to help... don't try to protect everyone from all the glass and nails that came out of their house.  Let people protect their own property.  
(2) Have more volunteers in your emergency services arsenal.  Full-time personnel are expensive and are usually much slower to respond too a incident if they are not on duty (IMO).
(3) Enforce building, density, and land use codes to help prevent a compounding effect in the event of a fire, flood, or tornado.  
(4) Use the latest and greatest technology to disseminate information to citizens so they can make informed decisions.  
(5) Promote community involvement through churches and civic groups.  This may be able to be accomplished best by offering them a tax/fee incentive for agreeing to have a response plan and be stocked with food and water in the case of an incident.  Ensure they have a list of those who have special needs (elderly, handicapped, lack of transportation) and a way to provide these services.  

In summary,  making instant decisions for thousands of people doesn't make good financial sense.  It also is rarely the correct one, especially if it is large scale disaster with little to no warning. Everyone's situation is different and unique and each of us will need to respond to the emergency in the way that will ensure our best possible survivability.  Make sure the services you are already 'obligated' to provide are ready the best they can be and let people know they will be on their own for anything else.  The key though is letting people know they need to prepare themselves.  Pretending that we can evacuate an entire city in the event of an oncoming store is just silly (see Katrina).  Focusing on being able to provide Police, Fire, EMS, and Public Works immediately after the incident should be the focus.  That's what needs to be done IMO.