"It's preparedness": Officials across Minnesota meeting to discuss lessons from Texas flooding
Emergency managers in the Northland on Tuesday met with the National Weather Service to strengthen their working relationships in the wake of the Kerrville, Texas, disaster, as well as their own flooding experience last summer.
"With emergency management, it's preparedness," Josh Brinkman, St. Louis County emergency operations manager, said. "It's drafting plans, working with other first responder agencies, and getting public messaging out there in advance."
Covering roughly 7,000 square miles, St. Louis County is Minnesota's largest, spanning from Duluth to the Boundary Waters.
"A lot of times if we're sending out cell phone alerts or anything else like that, we're saying we need to also put boots on the ground and physically go to that address physically, knock on the door and verify whether or not someone is in there," Brinkman said.
Like in Texas' Hill Country, torrential rain pummeled the Northland last summer; six to eight inches of rain fell in roughly 12 hours, flooding River Street in Cook, Minnesota, for the first time in 50 years.
"If you have flash floods, what are you grabbing in your house? Where are you going to go to? There is a lot of personal ownership on that from a resident to take this information," Brinkman said.
When it comes to summer camps and campsites, Brinkman said owners and directors must do two things to mitigate disasters: confirm the roster and emergency contacts for everyone in attendance, and have an adaptable action plan that can be applied to any emergency situation.
"It's a plane that crashes somewhere and you don't have a plane crash plan," Brinkman said. "Well, but you do have an all-hazards plan. You know who the main people you need to contact. You know how to get assistance in the area. You know the checklist that you start running through."
