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16 | THE COLONY NEWS | MARCH 2023 | EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS The Committee Needs Your Help! It is important that Colony residents be prepared for possible disasters or emergencies which can strike at any time. Cities are mandated to prepare disaster emergency plans to allocate and dispatch emergency services such as fire, police, rescue services, etc. However, in the case of major emergencies, as recently discussed with the Murrieta Fire Department, there is little chance that our local Fire and Police Departments will be able to assist our community during the first 24 to 72 hours because of disruptions in communications, roads and infrastructure, as well as the time required for assessment and activation of resources. Experts say that during the first few days after any major disaster most help will come at the community level, where neighbors will help neighbors, provided they are prepared to give that help. For many years, our volunteer resident Emergency Preparedness Committee (EPC) has been working on behalf of our community to help organize and prepare. During an emergency, our EPC will establish an Emergency Command Center. Our volunteer resident Incident Commander will communicate the needs of our community to our volunteer first responders (triage, search & rescue, etc.) to obtain the most rapid and efficient deployment of any available emergency services during the earliest stages of a disaster or emergency. The EPC is continually working to recruit resident volunteers. We are desperately seeking volunteers for the positions of Field Coordinator, Deputy Field Commander, Utility Coordinator, Logistics, Basic First Aid/Triage, Search & Rescue, and Data Management. As a major portion of this program, we are also in desperate need of volunteers to be Area Coordinators and Block Captains. Each Area Coordinator will support the specific needs of the Block Captains and communicate that information to and from the Emergency Command Center. If you are interested in additional information or joining the EPC, please contact Jackie Price at 951-304-9055, cell 415-203- 6445, or jkp623@verizon.net. If you are interested in one of the Area Coordinator or Block Captain teams, please contact Kathy Lewis at 951-412-0006 or km.lewis@outlook.com. The contact information for all of our committee members can be found on page 2 of The Colony News, Emergency Response Team. EMERGENCY PREP NEEDS VOLUNTEERS