Mayor's meeting tackles household disaster planning

Local volcanologist Jerry George is doing his best to shake things up in La Conner.

In a good way, of course.

George, a charter member of the Town's emergency management commission and its immediate past chair, addressed the panel's embrace of neighborhood mapping at the "Meet the Mayor" bi-monthly forum at La Conner Swinomish Library Saturday.

Neighborhood mapping developed in Oakland, California after a devastating wildlands fire in the 1990s engulfed hundreds of homes. It provides vital information to first responders in emergencies and natural disasters.

"With neighborhood mapping," George told a small but engaged group of attendees, "you have the needs, resources and skills of each person in the house."

George said that mapping groups have formed or are forming in the Tillinghast Drive, Center Street and Channel Cove neighborhoods.

"In our neighborhood," said George, a Center Street resident, "we've had two meetings and know who lives in every house and what their specific needs are."

The emergency management commission, which spent its first two years on flood mitigation and development of a Community Emergency Management Plan, is now shifting to neighborhood mapping and individual preparedness, George and Mayor Marna Hanneman said.

"Mapping neighborhoods is essential," said Hanneman, "and that's what the commission is looking at next year."

George said the process can also help La Conner with its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced extended isolation.

"Through neighborhood mapping," he said, "we can better integrate people within their neighborhoods. That's a contribution, too."

Hanneman concurred.

"We live in a phenomenal town," she said, "and people are wanting to help one another."

Neighborhood mapping, though, was put on the backburner while the town dealt with the aftermath of severe December 2022 Swinomish Channel flooding and the need to draft a CEMP.

"We had to respond to the flood, then address the emergency management plan," George said. "Now that that's done, I couldn't be happier that we're at the point where we can go forward with neighborhood mapping and individual preparation."

One action taken in George's neighborhood has been distribution of "Help/Okay" signs that can be placed in windows alerting responders to the status of households during emergencies.

Town planning commissioner Cynthia Elliott, among what Hanneman called the "small but mighty" group of five that attended the 90-minute session, stressed the need to spread the word.

"It seems like an underground effort," Elliott noted, "that not a lot of people know about."

George and Hanneman agreed that widespread awareness of neighborhood mapping is important. George vowed his commission will do its part.

"I joke with Jerry all the time," said Hanneman, "that he has to take his show on the road, to go to the different neighborhoods."

George, perhaps as a warmup for those pending meetings, said that mapping is a key component for successful emergency responses.

Hanneman and George pointed out that the draft CEMP, which includes a risk analysis for various emergency scenarios – including earthquakes and tsunamis – is on schedule for town council review and approval within a couple months.

Emphasizing his expertise in earthquakes and volcanic, George stressed that La Conner is susceptible to effects of earthquakes along the Seattle fault line but not a major offshore subduction quake.

"There's a lot of blather about subduction earthquakes," George said. "That's not something that's necessarily imminent. There's a far greater likelihood of surface fault earthquakes that are smaller but local and tend to occur every 20 years in the Puget Sound region."

George said one of the benefits of neighborhood mapping is that it's applicable to all types of emergencies.

"Once you have a disaster," George cautioned, "you have to plan for the next one because it will come again."