The city of Glenwood Springs has updated its evacuation routes for residents, complete with interactive maps.
In an open house on September 12, city officials gave residents the rundown on how to see their emergency evacuation routes, along with how to sign up for emergency alerts.
Deputy Fire Chief Doug Gerald said these new plans make it easier on emergency responders, as well as residents.
“So rather than say, ‘hey, dispatch, let's dump all of West Glenwood on our roadways at once,’ we can say, ‘do this zone. And five minutes later, we might say, ‘do this,’ in ten minutes we might say, ‘do this zone.’ So it really makes that process a lot easier,” he said to attendees at the Glenwood Springs Community Center.
Gerald and others also stuck around after the presentation with a laptop, to show residents how to find their home and neighborhood on a map, and determine which route they should take if given an evacuation order or notice.
The Glenwood Springs Fire Department is also offering free home assessments to residents looking to make their homes resistant to wildfire.
Fire Marshal Robin Pitt said the city has updated its fire code for new construction, like fireproof roofs and siding, but they have no authority to change already-built structures.
“We want to know that when you want to have an assessment of your property, that we can come up and give you the correct information that you need to make your house safer,” he said. “Your house has already been built. It's up to you to manage your house and manage your property around it. So, hopefully, you can be resistant to a wildfire.”
He said the fire department is working with new technology to get an up-to-date count on the occupancy of buildings in town, which could help shape evacuation plans and fire code updates.
Another big focus was making sure residents were signed up for emergency alerts. Representatives from the county dispatch center explained the difference between Everbridge and ReachWell, saying that Everbridge is more geographically-focused, while ReachWell gives alerts for the whole county, and provides translations.
The city is also looking for feedback from residents on an updated Community Wildfire Preparedness Plan (CWPP) on potential fire mitigation measures, resiliency projects and areas for interagency cooperation.
Mina Bolton, the emergency services coordinator for the Glenwood Springs Fire Department, said the city published its original CWPP in 2007, and it’s updating it now. She said they’re looking for people to share their values to help shape the plan.
“Someone might value their neighborhood,” she said. “And so maybe reducing structure ignitability would be maybe a goal that we can derive from that kind of feedback.”
Ultimately, she said, the final plan will be shaped by responses they get from the public.
All of the evacuation routes and zones, along with the ability to comment on the CWPP, are available for residents to view on the city’s website, along with designated “areas of refuge.”
Those areas are locations where people can take shelter from an emergency event if evacuation is not immediately safe.
