24 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | FEBRUARY 2021
Check with your committee chair to confirm meeting place, date, and time.
As Chairman of Four Seasons Beaumont
Emergency Preparedness Committee, or EPC, I
am always on the lookout for interesting news
articles. The first article is about the most
dangerous places in the country for specific
types of disasters. The second article talks about
why Riverside and San Bernardino Counties
have decided not to open field hospitals that
FEMA provided.
Contrary to popular belief, it was New York and
Philadelphia that were rated more dangerous
for tornadoes than Kansas and Oklahoma. The
important fact is that this conclusion is not based
on tornado frequencies but on the potential for
damage in the area. It becomes immediately
obvious that living in a densely populated area
with expensive real estate and an unprepared
population is the recipe for disaster. Hurricane
Sandy in New Jersey was a prime example.
Riverside County not San Bernardino County
was identified as the riskiest for wildfires.
Last March 24, I celebrated my birthday
by dividing up supplies for field hospitals in
Indio and Riverside. Just days after we finished
dividing up the supplies, the National Guard
arrived to help set up the field hospitals.
It was announced in a Dec. 31, 2020 news
article in the Press Enterprise that Riverside and
San Bernardino would not activate their FEMA-
supplied field hospitals. In the article, Shane
Reichardt, a senior public information specialist
with Riverside County Emergency Management
Department, announced that neither location
would open their field hospitals due to staffing
problems and for having equipment that was
more suited to hurricanes or tornadoes and not
a pandemic.
We meet on the third Tuesday of the month
in the HOA Board Conference Room at 10 am.
The next meeting will be Tuesday Feb. 16 at 10
am on Zoom. ~ Michael A. Mendoza, EPC
Chairman, srmendoza@verizon.net
Emergency Preparedness Committee
