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Larry Smith Washington County Emergency Manager From what I see, the biggest benefit
of having a COAD will increase our
response so that we can enhance it,
so we have our partners pre-identified
and what kinds of things they can
bring to the table, resources to the
table before the events gonna happen.
It is the faith based organizations
and the volunteer organizations that
are the backbone of the recovery effort.
Whether it’s a small disaster or a huge
disaster you can’t predict it. Couple
of years ago, there was a disaster where
I lived. We didn’t have any COAD we just
had the fire department red cross emergency
manager we didn’t have any long term recovery
program or anything like that there. I
lived in that same house for 15 years,
never even got water in the basement and
I ended up getting 9 ½ feet – 10 feet of
water and oil in our house and they had
to totally destroy it. If we would have
had a recovery program there, our community
would have been much better off. And, that
is one thing I stress to these communities
here is if you already have something set
up then you are already prepared for when
the disaster happens. Preparedness is the
best way to go on any type of disaster.
The individual needs to be prepared and
have a preparedness kit so that way if
something does happen they can be already
there and know where they are going whether
it’s a house fire, tornado or whatever
it may be. So if you are prepared for
your disaster, you're to be a lot better
off and have your resources all in hand so
once a disaster happens all you do is pick
up the phone and say we need this, this and
this. And then people, you already have
your resources.
We would have to – we would scramble but
we could get it done but we could do
it better if we had a group like this.
Like I said, we would have our partners
pre-identified so we are not kinda
duplicating any of our efforts so we would
have a smooth as can be response for everybody.
You bring your resources together before it
ever happens and when you bring these resources
together your community,your county or your state
is going to recover a lot more than it would if
you hadn’t had something in your area.