Save the Date: 2014 Colorado Emergency Management Conference February 25-27

Planning for the 2014 Colorado Emergency Management Conference is underway. We are developing the conference agenda with a focus on “Partner Integration – Your Piece of the Puzzle”. The 2014 Emergency Management Conference Committee is dedicated to improving the Colorado Emergency Management Conference by building on past successes and opening the door to new ideas that will attract all of our partners to participate.

The conference will be held February 25-27, 2014 in Loveland Colorado at the Embassy Suites. This three-day conference will feature speakers from across the state on a range of topics from health and medical, emergency management, to emergency medical response, law enforcement and fire, designed to empower all emergency support functions to become better integrated risk managers in our fields.

Our conference is more than emergency management based (although this remains an important topic). We are committed to integration, all-hazards community risk reduction, instructional methodology and program improvement. Colorado has faced unprecedented disasters in the last few years. These disasters have highlighted the need to improve coordination and collaboration through multidiciplinary, integrative preparedness activities. We are looking forward to providing exciting learning opportunities that will attract participation across our whole community.

If you are interested in speaking at the conference, please submit your proposal here: https://docs.google.com/a/state.co.us/forms/d/1f57SzGnvGFSjJclXFTWQqyS-jGzD7XkCK1YXXt7x2Ac/viewform?edit_requested=true

For more information, please go to: www.cemacolorado.org

Postive Coping for Disaster Anniversaries

A special guest blog from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's behavioral health team.

Anniversaries, holidays and other special days help us mark passing time and how our lives have changed. Recognizing those changes on the anniversary of any loss may evoke sad memories, but they may also induce joy and new reasons to celebrate - even after a disaster.

Anniversaries of community tragedies, such as the Aurora theater shooting, High Park Fire or Waldo Canyon Fire, may be especially difficult. Renewed feelings of loss, strong memories and other stress reactions can surface and feel almost as strong as the day of the disaster. Stress reactions can be expressed as emotion, thoughts, physical feelings, behavior or spiritual experiences. Other reminders, including revisited media coverage from the event, police tape and sounds or violent stories that resemble the event, can also be triggers for re-experiencing stress and fear. It is not unusual for this to happen.

These reactions resurface both for survivors and for responders, volunteers, media personnel and service providers who helped during the disaster. Disasters are strong experiences for everyone who was involved, and everyone shares the anniversary.

Emotions come and go like waves in response to reminders and they often ease over time. Most people are able to get through these special anniversary days and get back to feeling a bit better with a little help from friends and family.

Consider these tips to take care of yourself and others during anniversaries and other special days:

• Be gentle to yourself. Treat yourself with the same kindness you give to others.
• Know that it is natural to feel sad and/or angry. People may or may not recognize this is a hard day for you. Good wishes and pleasant greetings may just remind you of your losses. This is normal. Try not to fight the feelings, but be aware they are likely connected to your losses and may not be aimed at anyone in particular.
• Avoid Drugs and Alcohol. It may seem like using drugs or alcohol helps you escape bad feelings or physical symptoms from stress, but they can actually make things worse in the long run by interrupting sleep, causing health or relationship problems and creating potential drug dependence. If you have had a problem with substances before, find people (family, support groups, etc.) or services to support your continued recovery.
• Make healthy and positive coping choices. Everyone can find healthier ways to manage your feelings and physical symptoms:
• Connect with trusted friends and family 
• Eat healthy food 
• Get good sleep
• Exercise 
• Reduce caffeine.
• Don't just leave the TV on.  Choose programs that will provide the information or experiences that will be educational or healing experiences for your family.
• Plan activities. This helps you to have some control and to know what to anticipate on this emotionally-charged day. Do what you would like to do rather than what you think you should do. Consider commemorative events or other activities and rituals that bring you comfort. Draw on your faith or spirituality. Do things that might help you with overwhelming emotions - physical exercise helps wash stress chemicals out of our bodies; writing down what we’re feeling can help us name and manage emotions. Try doing some of these activities in the days before and after the anniversary as well.
• Reach out to family and friends and accept their kindness. Many cultures make it difficult to accept support because they teach us to be independent or not to burden others. But remember support is a gesture of caring. Be gracious and allow them the opportunity to share their caring with you.
• Helping others may actually be a form of helping yourself. One way of helping could be to pass on some of these tips.
• If you are still having trouble coping, ask for professional help.

The 7/20 Day of Remembrance will take place on Saturday at the Aurora Municipal Center and other locations in Aurora. Read more about it at the 7/20 Recovery website: http://www.720recovery.org/.

This website also contains information about the Aurora Strong Community Resilience Center located at 1298 Peoria Street in Aurora, which opened to the public on July 11, 2013. The center offers classes to learn resilience and coping skills in the face of unexpected trauma, and is open 12-8 p.m. (Monday-Friday) and 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. (Saturday).

Wildfire Recovery Guidance for Cleanup of Damaged or Destroyed Buildings

Information from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Debris and Ash – Handling and Disposal

The ash deposited by forest fires is relatively nontoxic and similar to ash that might be found in your fireplace. However, any ash may contain unknown substances, including chemicals. In particular, ash and debris from burned structures may contain more toxic substances than forest fire ash, because of the many synthetic and other materials present in homes and buildings. For example, car batteries or mercury light bulbs may have been present in the buildings. In addition, older buildings have a greater potential to contain asbestos and lead.

People should take care when handling any materials from buildings that either are partially damaged by the fire (i.e., salvageable building materials remaining) or completely destroyed by the fire (i.e., only ash and debris remain). They should wear protective clothing and equipment to avoid skin contact and inhalation of ash and other disturbed material.

All debris and ash should be handled in a manner that will minimize potential exposure to any unknown hazardous materials that could potentially be present in the debris. Soil under the area where the ash/debris was deposited should be scraped to ensure all ash and building debris has been removed from the site.

Materials must be thoroughly wetted to minimize dust, and then packaged inside a 6-mil plastic sheeting liner and placed in an end-dump roll-off with the top of the roll-off sealed with the plastic sheeting to secure the contents during transport once the roll-off is loaded.

The department is providing a list of landfills that will accept debris and ash from burned structures affected by these wildfires. Roll-offs can be taken to any one of the landfills on the list. Please call the landfill contact before transporting loads to alert the landfill that the material is coming and confirm it will accept the waste.

If you wish to bring debris and ash from structures burned during these wildfires to a different landfill, please contact that landfill to ensure they can accept the material.

The landfill should be informed the debris and ash has come from a structure burned in a wildfire area. Contractors should consult with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration at 303-844-5285 (Denver area office) or 303-843-4500 (Englewood area office) to determine required training and personal protective equipment that will be required for those handling this material.
A state-issued demolition permit is not required to remove the ash and debris from buildings that have been partially or completely destroyed. However, the ash and debris must be thoroughly wetted prior to handling to minimize dust.  

Asbestos

If asbestos-containing material is known to be present in ash or debris in amounts greater than the trigger levels, they must be removed in accordance with Colorado Regulation No. 8, Part B. Trigger levels for single family residential dwellings are 50 linear feet on pipes, 32 square feet on other surfaces or the volume equivalent of a 55-gallon drum. If this is not known, the material may handled and disposed of using the procedures outlined above.

Metal debris must be washed clean of ash/debris prior to recycling. Concrete debris (foundations) must be disposed of at an approved landfill. If you wish to recycle this material, it must be inspected by a certified asbestos building inspector and found to be free of asbestos-containing materials prior to recycling.

Lists of and contact information for landfills that will accept ash and debris from the various wildfires can be found on the Air Pollution Control Division’s website.

If you need additional information, please contact Charles Johnson at the department’s Solid Waste Unit at 303-692-3348 or Charles.Johnson@state.co.us , or the Asbestos Unit at 303-692-3100 or http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/ap/asbestos/index.html.

Download or view the CDPHE factsheet:  http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/Wildfires/WildfireRecoveryGudianceBldgs.pdf

Course Announcement - Healthcare Partners Emergency Preparedness and Communications Workshops

The University of Colorado Denver Center for Integrated Disaster Health Preparedness is running a statewide series of daylong workshops for community health partners to build emergency preparedness within individual facilities and throughout the region.  Each workshop will be designed to adapt to the varied levels of preparedness and coordination among participants.  The intent of each workshop will be to challenge participants and aid in enhancing the level of coordination and preparedness in the surrounding region.  More information regarding the series, registration and benefits can be found at http://allclearemg.com/communityhealth.

Course Announcement - Health and Safety 40-Hour Training - 2/28-3/1 - Commerce City, CO

The Environmental Protection Agency, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Tri-County Health Department and South Adams County Fire Department have teamed up to offer a 40-hour Health and Safety Training course: Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (29 CFR 1910.120 (e)(3)(i) from February 28 - March 4, 2011.  The training will take place in Commerce City at the South Adams County Fire Protection District Station 1.

The course will meet expectations for deployable CO Emergency Management Assistance Compact Environmental Health professionals teams and will cover superfund regulations, site assessments, sampling techniques, monitoring equipment, personal protective equipment and emergency response.

To register, go to https://www.co.train.org and search for Course ID: 1025541.  For any questions about the training, contact Robin Koons, PhD, at robin.koons@state.co.us or at (303) 692-2719.

Behavioral Health Resources for the Fourmile Canyon Fire

Elizabeth Roome, with the Colorado Division of Behavioral Health Disaster Preparedness and Response, has brought together some outstanding resources to help those affected by disaster cope with the stress.  As we go forward in recovery of the Fourmile Canyon Fire, the Division will be an integral part of working with local Boulder County Public Health partners to provide direct assistance and support to survivors, first responders and aid workers.

Below are just some of the resources Beth and the Behavioral Health team are bringing to assist in the response and recovery effort:

Children
Coping with Children's Reaction to Trauma
Tips for Talking to Children After a Disaster:  A Guide for Parents and Teachers
Tips for Talking to Children in Trauma:  Interventions at Home For Preschool to Adolescence
How Families Can help Children Cope with Fear and Anxiety
"My Fire Story":  A Guided Activity Workbook for Children, Families and Teachers

General Population
How to Deal with Grief
Self-Care Tips for Survivors of a Traumatic Event:  What to Expect in Your Personal, Family, Work and Financial Life

Disaster Response Workers
Tips for Managing and Preventing Stress:  A Guide for emergency and Disaster Response Workers

Boulder County Public Health - Fourmile Canyon Wildfire Health Page

Many agencies are supporting Fourmile Canyon response and recovery operation and on the frontline of these are Boulder County Public Health.  The Boulder County Public Health Department has established a website specific for the Fourmile Fire at http://www.bouldercounty.org/health/fireresources.htm.  On this page, you will find the Daily Health Advisory (English and Spanish) and specific information for residents regarding Food Safety, such as food exposure to fire resources, general food safety after a fire information and spoiled food disposal collection sites.

You will also find specific Environmental Health information, including information related to the use of fire suppressants and relative to the safe cleanup of fire ash.

As we go forward in the recovery effort, these and resources which will be posted on the Boulder County Health Fourmile Canyon Wildfire Page will be a great help. For the latest information on the Fourmile fire activity, check the Fourmile Canyon Fire Inciweb Page and for the latest regarding Boulder County actions, check out the Boulder Office of Emergency Management and Boulder County's site.  For information from other agencies involved in the recovery effort, check out the Fourmile Fire - Recovery Task Force Page

DEM Training Registration and Tracking Moving to CO.TRAIN

Per Robyn Knappe, DEM Training Officer, to build partnerships make training participation and scheduling more accessible for students, the Division of Emergency Management is centralizing all its training registration, search and tracking activities to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's CO.TRAIN.org system.  There are some great opportunities ahead as many state agencies are moving in that same direction.

The biggest advantage will be the calendar function, which allows statewide visibility of training activities across Departments, agencies and subject matter criterion.  Rather than having to search for emergency management, health preparedness and homeland security classes on multiple websites, nearly all state emergency management-related agencies will be using CO.TRAIN. Another function is the ability for students to input information on previous classes and to start to consolidate their training records in one place.  Of course, all this will not happen overnight but we have begun the work.  If you have questions at any time during this transition phase, contact Robyn at robyn.knappe@state.co.us.

Starting with the class Incident Command System (ICS) class in Montrose, “Situation Unit Leader” Sept. 27, 2010, DEM is starting the registration for all future classes through CO.TRAIN.  We will continue to make training information, news and announcements available on COEmergency's Training Page, which includes the DEM Training News Feed.

What does this mean for me?
If you do not have a CO.TRAIN account, you will need to spend 10 minutes creating a profile and password.  The nice thing is that you only create the profile once.  And the password, is a self-regulating system, so if you forget your password, you can get on the site and change it without administrator assistance (most of the time, anyway).

What is CO.TRAIN system?
It is a training management system with easy to use features and efficient processes.  You sign up once at the co.train.org website and you can easily register for classes.  There is a super calendar and a course search function.

Where did it come from?
The TRAIN system is a free service of the Public Health Foundation, www.train.org is part of the newly expanded TrainingFinder Real-time Affiliate Integrated Network (TRAIN).  CO stands for Colorado in the CO.TRAIN acronym. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has been using the system since 2004 and has offered it to other departments as a no fee service to state agencies.

Who else is using it?
Many other states have adopted the site for registering for public health classes and some have adopted it for all-hazards emergency/disaster training management.  For example: the State of Kansas (KS TRAIN)and Utah (UT TRAIN) utilize the all hazards approach and use the TRAIN system for most all emergency management, ICS and homeland security classes.

What are some enhancements in the CO.TRAIN features over the old DEM system?
For example, you can print past certificates for yourself if you lose a certificate. The biggest enhancement is the super calendar which will show all classes. There are also automated function for building class rosters and notifications. As a course administrator, all the students registered in a class can be sent an email with the click of a button. You can also make a training plan for yourself in the system.  In the future, DEM will highlight some of the features in future training activity updates on COEmergency.com.

What are the challenges?
DEM will have to hand key input for past student training records.  We are not certain how long this will take nor how far back our records will go.  We are trying to evaluate this now so stay tuned.

Future enhancements
The Governors Office of Homeland Security (GOHS) will be making some upgrades to the system some time in 2011 to upgrade to the calendar function so that courses may be classified by region and sponsor rather than by discipline code. GOHS courses cross so many disciplines that to use those codes no longer provides us with an accurate view of courses throughout the state. GOHS is already using the web based CO.TRAIN system.

Thank you for your patience as we move to the CO.TRAIN system.  For more information, please email robyn.knappe@state.co.us or call (720)852-6617. Or for more technical issues with the CO.TRAIN site, contact Greg Schlosser at cdphe.co.train@state.co.us or at (303)692-2683.

Pueblo City-County Hosts LSU Sampling Course (LSU-222) - July 27-29, 2010

Pueblo City-County Public Health Department is hosting a Sampling Course, conducted by Louisiana State University (LSU), on July 27-29, 2010.  The course is designed for emergency responders and teaches methods to collect potential Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) material for testing and sampling.  The course is both classroom and hands-on instruction.

The class will be held at Pueblo West Fire Station #3 at 729 East Gold Drive, Pueblo West, CO 81007 and there is no cost for the course.

Download and complete the LSU Sampling Course Flyer to register and for more information on the course, contact Jim Cody or Loraine Greenwood.

Public Health Emergency - PHE.gov

I wanted to pass along, if you had not seen it already, a site rolled out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, called PHE.gov - "for Public Health Emergency" - that you should check out.  Broken down into target areas to assist public health and emergency management officials, the site contains a wealth of vetted links and info for health and med services support, specific info for fed/state/local planners, medical countermeasures, international prep and response, context docs for public health emergency response and detailed info on a wide range of subjects for responders, clinicians and practitioners.

In addition, the PHE coordinators are rolling out a complement of social media sites to augment the "hub" of PHE.gov including a PHE Facebook site, PHE Twitter Feed, PHE YouTube.  One of the cooler things the site has accomplished is tackling the problem of a central resource for links to other State public health social media sites and outlets (which can be found at http://www.phe.gov/emergency/news/multimedia/Pages/statesocialmediasites.aspx).  As a state agency involved in emergency management and operating in close coordination with our Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, it is very interesting to have a one-stop to see what our colleagues around the nation are doing with social media and online outreach and emergency notification.

Too, on the site, you will find links to the the latest National Situation Update and info regarding declared disasters and emergencies.  Whether you are interested in all-hazard health threats, food safety, air and water quality info or mental health issues and support, related to emergency management, there is something for you here.

So, take a minute and check out PHE.gov.

Volunteers Needed - Hospital Patient Evacuation Exercise - June 24, 2010 - Lafayette, CO

Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center, Exempla Lutheran Medical Center and Exempla Saint Joseph Hospitals will be conducting a hospital patient evacuation exercise called "Operation Toto" on Thursday, June 24, 2010 from 10:30 am - 2:30 pm and needs some volunteers to play patients. The exercise will test system-wide emergency preparedness and partnerships with Boulder, Denver and Jefferson Counties. Lunch will be provided to volunteers along with the opportunity to work to help refine your local public health officials' capabilities to respond to challenging patient care situations. For questions, contact Mac Butterfass at (303) 689-4598 or butterfassm@exempla.org.  To sign up as a volunteer patient for this exercise, please call Exempla's AnswerLine at (303) 689-4595.

Alameda H1N1 Clinic

Quick pic from Alameda High School from this morning (Sat, 19 Dec 09) I got from DEM's Kerry Kimble, where responders from the Colorado Department of Public Health, local health officials, the Jefferson County Incident Management Team, local emergency medical services and mental health reps are running an H1N1 flu clinic.  The team is managing the clinic using the Incident Command System (ICS) to manage an the event.  Good reminder that using ICS for non-emergency response is a good way to train!  Understand from Kerry that 800 have been processed thus far (11:00 am).  Looked around and it seems there are further postings about the event at http://twitter.com/unflu and also at Immunizecolorado.com.