No point in quaking over fears of disasters

Just a few hours after State Emergency Management Region E coordinator Mark Winkler and Dick Knaup, Cape Girardeau County emergency management director, visited Cape Girardeau County commissioners to discuss emergency management plans, a 6.1-magnitude temblor struck just north of Costa Rica. A day later and much closer to home, the earth shook a bit near Glenallen, Mo., in what scientists are calling a 2.5-magnitude quake.

I spent a good part of the weekend thinking about what the commissioners heard from Winkler, Knaup and Cape Girardeau Health Center director Charlotte Craig, R.N., on Thursday morning.

Craig made her annual report, which included a talk about emergency management. She pointed out that emergency response includes helping people find a way to care for pets during disasters. Time and again, she told said Thursday, people in the midst of a disaster put themselves at risk because they hesitate to leave their pets alone. Pet care during emergencies is also critical, she said, to make sure response teams are safe as they move through communities affected by a disaster. She's hoping to get an animal sheltering supply trailer for the county, which has, she said, "the potential for 19,000 animals of one kind or another" that would need care during a disaster.

Craig also asked the commissioners for a place to store the mass-care trailer she bought two years ago, because someone recently broke into it and stole the generator. Right now, there's no room at the county, she learned.

Winkler told the commissioners Cape Girardeau County experienced eight declared disasters, starting with a cluster of tornadoes, which inflicted damage on 21 counties, including Stoddard, followed by February's ice storms, the flooding that dominated two weeks in March and much of April, and the 5.2-magnitude earthquake April 18 based near Bellmont, Ill, but felt in St. Louis and, to a lesser extent, here.

While the good news is that Cape Girardeau County's emergency plan -- called an all-hazard mitigation plan -- has been updated, officials said Thursday that more regular folks need to start making their own plans.

Winkler and Knaup also pointed out a new term for such plans. Most of us will recall "Standard Operating Procedures" or SOP as the term applied to routine practices. Well, now we're to call them Standard Operating Guidelines, or SOG, because, Winkler said, because SOPs require emergency response teams to follow a specific set of steps. Not doing so can result in lost funding or even end up being cause for a lawsuit "if you didn't follow it verbatim," Knaup said.

SEMA has a summary of the 2008 disasters archived at sema.dps.mo.gov/SitReps/Sitreps2008.html. To see the all-hazard mitigation plans for Region E counties, visit the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development website, www.semorpc.org, and click on the "Hazard Mitigation" link.

To figure out what your SOG should be during a disaster, visit www.ready.gov and click on "Ready America" for a helpful checklist.

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South Cape community activists continue to look for ways to reach out to people. The folks at True Vine Ministries -- one of three churches that spearheaded walks through the city's south side in October and again in December -- has an event for boys and young men, ages 10 through 20, Friday, called "Teen Male Lock In." Similar to the high school seniors' safety-conscious all-night parties, this one is geared at helping young men in South Cape find role models and set life goals. Organizer Darryl Reddin said this free event includes music, guest speakers, movies, dinner and breakfast for those who attend. For details, call 332-8886.

Questions, suggestions or tips for Lost on Main Street? E-mail pmcnichol@semissourian.com or call 573-388-3646.