Shelter From The Storm

Quick Weather Report

Lots of folks have commented about how cold this winter has been. I agree, we’ve had a prolonged period from Nov. 1 to now where it’s been pretty damned frigid night and day.

I actually tallied up how many freezing or below nights there’s been since the first of November. Turns out there were 91 nights that qualified out of a total of 151 days.

That’s why your bones were chilled all winter, especially if you work outdoors, because you don’t have much of an opportunity to warm up when daytime temperatures average somewhere in the mid-40s and then it’s sub-freezing at night.

The last two days we experienced our first spring-like weather after five months of extreme winter conditions. And Major League baseball just completed its first week of the season, which always means Spring is upon us.

Laytonville Emergency Shelter update

As I’ve previously reported, the emergency shelter snafu caused by county bureaucratic inaction during the three-day closure of a 70-mile stretch of Highway 101 in late February, was the topic of a full discussion at the Laytonville Town Council meeting recently.

We decided at the meeting that Laytonville will independently manage disaster response and emergency shelter operations. Think of it this way: Almost without exception, local problems call for local solutions.

We’ve formed a coalition of local agencies and organizations to oversee disaster response and shelter operations. Those organizations are Laytonville Healthy Start, the Laytonville Fire Department, the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council, Laytonville County Water District, Long Valley Health Center, and the Laytonville Unified school District.

This week, my daughter Jayma Shields Spence, Laytonville Healthy Start Director, was contacted by the Community Foundation of Mendocino County (CFMC), which is a county-wide nonprofit organization that administers permanent charitable funds established through gifts and bequests from individuals, families, businesses, and other organizations.

CFMC made the contact because of all the media reports regarding the shutdown of Highway 101 that resulted in the stranding of travelers in the Laytonville area in need of shelter from the storm. The Foundation is offering to assist our efforts in handling future emergencies on our own.

What follows is a letter from CFMC’s Senior Program Officer, Meredith DeLucia, explaining her organization’s proposal to assist Laytonville area agencies and organizations with our plans to establish emergency services. I’ve also included Jayma’s response to Ms DeLucia so that you will have a basic understanding of where the process stands right now and the plans to establish local emergency services.

Here’s the excerpted correspondence:

On the heels of the winter weather, the Community Foundation has been thinking of how it can best support disaster response and mitigation efforts in the county. We have determined that our partnerships with nonprofits and community organizations are our strength and would like to help convene local organizations to brainstorm ideas for streamlining disaster response.

We envision forming a regional COAD which is a group of Community Organizations Active in Disaster. This group would function in partnership with the countywide VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) to help the VOAD quickly understand the on-the-ground conditions in the event of an emergency. We think of the VOAD serving as the hub of a wheel and the regional COADs as the spokes. We have seen that people in their communities are the first to recognize when the situation in their region becomes unsafe and living conditions are untenable. Regional COADs would be able to report to the central VOAD in order to ensure that resources are distributed and help is provided quickly while the county/ state/ federal government aid is processed.

Laytonville Healthy Start, Long Valley Health, and Bell Springs Fire Department were the three partners who first came to mind as you were instrumental in responding to the events in February and March. If you are willing, we would love to have your organization represented at this convening. Please let me know if you would be interested.

Thank you!

Meredith DeLucia, Community Foundation

Hi Meredith,

Thanks for reaching out and lending support, I can’t express my gratitude enough to the Community Foundation.

Our local “MAC” (Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council) is supporting a localized effort to respond to sheltering folks at my site and in collaboration with the school district if/when we need to — without having to rely on the county during emergencies — our awful experience with the County during the snowstorms of Feb 23-25 in downtown Laytonville solidified our mission to become as self-sufficient as possible. To date, I have gathered enough supplies to get 15 people on cots so we won’t have to go through the county’s bureaucratic chain of command that failed us last time we requested access to the emergency shelter trailer parked right outside the doors of Healthy Start.

So, we would love to partner with you and the other entities mentioned in your email.

I would add Laytonville Fire Department (adding Sue Carberry here as I know she is interested in this topic as well). We have Mike Carter in the community who is a CERT trainer as well as HAM radio operator. I believe LVHC has a HAM radio.

I am including my dad, Jim Shields here, he’s the chairman of the LAMAC and I have also added the LAMAC’s David “Lizard” Jeffries, who was willing to lend a hand to us while we were hosting stranded travelers at Healthy Start.

I think a member of the Spy Rock community should be included, I have someone in mind, I’ll see if she’s interested or could point us to someone else. I think a member of the Woodman Canyon community would be beneficial as well- I have added LaRae Wise here as she would know the appropriate person to add to the invite list.

Thank you for reaching out.

Jayma Shields Spence, Laytonville Healthy Start

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org.)