Learn how to prepare for a disaster during your lunch break

Posted: 7/15/11  

The Municipality’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) conducts multiple community outreach and education programs to help Anchorage residents prepare for emergencies and disasters.  As Dawn Brantley, Emergency Program Manager for OEM, likes to remind us, “No city can be fully prepared without prepared citizens; that’s why education and outreach are critical to help ensure our community’s resilience during a disaster.”

In an effort to help citizens prepare, the OEM provides free presentations to groups about various emergency preparedness topics. According to Brantley, she typically gets only about 20-30 minutes to cover critically important subjects like earthquake preparedness.  “There is so much important information about emergency preparedness topics that it’s difficult to cover in a short period of time,” said Brantley.  As a result, Brantley created the Brown Bag Lunch Seminar Series. 

The series identifies one specific emergency preparedness topic and covers it in-depth for an hour during the typical lunch hour, 12 to 1 p.m.  The OEM offers one seminar each month at the Emergency Operations Center, located at 1305 “E” St.  All Brown Bag Lunch Seminars are free and open to the public.  Topics that have been covered this year include pet emergency preparedness; wildfire preparedness; earthquake preparedness; communicating during disasters; and air quality emergencies. 

The topics and dates for the rest of this year are:

July 22

Evacuation Planning

August 5

Sheltering In Place

October 21

Severe Winter Weather Preparedness

November 18

Emergency Preparedness for Vulnerable Populations

December 2

Getting to Know the Office of Emergency Management

Information and a link to registration for these events can be found at muni.org/oem. In addition to the Brown Bag Seminars, any of these topics can be presented at group meetings at work, school, church, community councils, or in neighborhoods.  For more information, contact Dawn Brantley directly at 343-1407 or brantleyd@muni.org.

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