Iowa County Surveys Citizens to Determine Emergency Volunteer Capabilities

By: Elaine Rundle on September 17, 2009

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The idea that all disasters happen locally has been heavily stressed by Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. To garner a better understanding of what its residents could contribute to disaster response and recovery, Adair County, Iowa, is surveying its citizens to determine their availability for volunteering and how they’d be interested in contributing.

Robert Kempf, emergency management coordinator of Adair County, said in the past the county has relied heavily on service clubs if it needed volunteer support. “With the more advanced planning that we try to do now, we’ve decided we should try to solicit more people instead of depending on the groups,” he said. “In the rural areas, the same groups get called on again and again to help.”

The emergency volunteer survey asks residents when they would be available and what type of help they’re interested in doing — food services, baby-sitting, clerical work, answering phones, etc. It also finds out of residents would be willing to donate the use of their chainsaws, tractors or other machinery that could be used to aid emergency response.

“Let’s say we have a tornado that goes through one of our small towns and we need assistance from the people with chainsaws, tractors, loaders or things like that,” Kempf said. “We have a lot of contractors around who might be able to help, and this just gives us a quicker way of accessing who those people are and when they might be available.”

According to Debbie Hall, the county’s public information officer, the survey has already identified some volunteers with special skills that the county was unaware of, including a sign language interpreter.

The survey is being executed in cooperation with the county’s Public Health Department and Extension services and can be accessed online or in hard copy. Hall said the goal is to get 400 participants — the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that as of 2008 the county’s population was 7,506 people. As of press time, the county had reached one-fourth of its goal, Hall said. However, citizens can drop off hard copies of the survey at public libraries and those surveys hadn’t been picked up yet. Hall also said the survey will be advertised at two large upcoming county events.

Kempf said the survey will provide the county with a good way of pulling together citizen information. He works 20 hours per week as the emergency coordinator so this allows the Emergency Management Agency to gain a lot of information in a quick format.

Kempf also is the emergency management coordinator for Guthrie County, which surveyed its citizens last year. He said 300 out of 11,000 people participated in the survey.

You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Adair-County-Iowa-Survey.html

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