Dobbs talks emergency preparedness at chamber talk

Emergency preparedness and risk assessment were topics of discussion as Big Horn County Emergency Management Coordinator LaRae Dobbs addressed the Lovell Area Chamber of Commerce membership at the Mustang Café March 16.

Dobbs began by saying she has been the coordinator for more than 10 years and is “pretty passionate about trying to make sure that Big Horn County is in the best position that we can be in to be prepared for any type of an emergency.”

“One of my main jobs is to help make sure that all of our emergency response agencies and personnel, along with our government agencies, are prepared for emergencies that we might be able to foresee could happen here,” she said, “so part of that is to be able to do some risk assessment with what type of natural disasters might happen in this area, what type of manmade events might occur, and that includes, of course, terrorist events.”

Dobbs said much of her funding comes through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and is usually tied to terrorism prevention and response, so when it comes to applying for funding, versatility is the key, as she put it, “being able to show multiple uses for equipment that we might apply for grants for or training, or things like that.”

“We always have to be able to make a tie to how we would use it during a terrorist event, or what might a possible terrorist event be that we might need that for after a few years in the job,” she noted. “If it’s not an outrageous thing, it’s actually pretty easy to tie it to that. So that’s something that I’m always thinking in the back of my head. When somebody says, ‘Wow, you know, our agency needs this, or we could really use that,’ my brain immediately says, ‘How would we use that piece of equipment to respond to a terrorist type event? How do we tie that to it?’

“So for a lot of the different agencies in the responder world, I’m almost the fairy godmother. I’m the person that finds the equipment that they need, and I have tried to do that for them as best as I can.”

Dobbs said her job can be divided into five categories: planning, organization, equipment, training and exercise.

“I have to be able to fit anything that I am applying for funding for or that I’m explaining on my reports as to what I’m doing with my time into planning organization, equipment, training or exercise. I have to fit everything that I do into one of those categories to be able to justify my position,” she said. “FEMA pays 50% of my existence as an emergency management coordinator, so both my salary and also all of the auxiliary things that go along with that, benefits and things like that. It comes to the state, and the state agency that oversees emergency management is the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, and they will be changing to the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security in 2026, taking them out from underneath the governor’s office.

“So we’re under the umbrella of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, but we work for the county, and so I answer to the county commissioners; they are my boss. The funding that I try to bring in, that I apply for grants through, is the state Homeland Security Program grant, which has been kind of frustrated by all of the things that happened with DOGE and all of that that slowed everything’s down and kind of stopped things for a little while.”

The funding process takes many steps, she noted. Contracts must go through the state attorney general, the county commissioners, the county attorney’s office, Homeland Security and the recipient, whether it be law enforcement, a fire department, a county agency or a municipality, she said, adding, “I try to find funding when the agencies need new widgets, so to speak.”

She noted Gas LEL monitors that came in handy when a digger tore open a natural gas distribution line west of Lovell a couple of years ago. The damage to the line caused the WBI distribution facility across the highway from the sugar factory to vent gas via an automatic shutdown system to prevent an explosion, and the sugar factory was evacuated.

Fortunately, the Lovell fire department had two LEL monitors that emergency responders could use that day as they assessed the situation, and now Dobbs is helping the county obtain more monitors for the sheriff’s office and search and rescue.

“Having these gas LEL monitors is really helpful for our responders, because when they’re going and knocking on doors, if there’s a gas problem that’s inside the house and you open the door and all of a sudden you oxygenate it, you can have an explosion,” she said. “So these guys need to know what the levels are as they’re doing the response. So it was a true need that we had, and I was able to get enough of them that, if the sheriff’s department decided to spread some of them out, that maybe at some point in time search and rescue might train with them. Search and rescue, who also wanted them for cave rescues, will have access to the toys and widgets that they need to perform the job. So that’s just kind of an example of the type of things that I do.”

Dobbs said she does presentations on personal preparedness for families, noting that first responders can focus on their job better in an emergency situation if they know their families are safe at home. She passed out copies of a Family Emergency Communication Plan to chamber members.

“It’s pretty tough to take care of business if you’re a responder when you know your family’s going through the same emergency at home, right?” she said. “If this is a large-scale disaster, where’s your brain going to be, and where are you probably going to want to be?  You’re going to want to go home and care for your family, and you’re not able to be a very effective responder.

“So if you have a plan at home where you know your family’s taken care of and that they have a plan and you know how to reach them and you know where they’re going to go, and you know that they have an emergency kit to take with them and that kind of stuff, then you can do your job as a responder, because you’re a little bit more confident that your family is going to be taken care of because you did that ahead of time.”

She also passed out copies of a Business Continuity Plan to chamber members, which is designed to help a business keep going in case of an emergency. Topics include risk assessment, recovery strategies, incident response teams, communication protocols, data backup and recovery, testing and maintenance and business impact analysis.

She noted various possibilities from the blackouts and brownouts happening more frequently due to power company safety protocols and the increasing chances for wildfires due to dry vegetation and high winds.

Dobbs said she’s working with the Forest Service, the county fire warden and fire departments on a “Ready, Set, Go” plan for families to have items ready to go in case of an evacuation. She believes families should have two weeks’ worth of food, clothing and the like available for the family vehicle in case of an evacuation. She made a scratch-off list available for the program.

She said the Big Horn County Search and Rescue squads are the best in the business, and she encouraged all chamber members to support fundraising programs when they are held. She noted the thousands of man hours spent in a search for an individual in the Cloud Peak Wilderness last summer.

“Please always support those fundraisers,” she said. “The training is not always all paid for, and sometimes they have to travel for that training. These are volunteers, and they’re taking time off of work. They’re using their vacation days or going days without pay to go get that training and be ready. Our ropes team has a rigorous training that they have to do to stay certified. We also have a river team for swift water rescues that has to stay certified every single year. The amount of training that they do is very impressive. So we do have some costs.”