Wildfires

Welcome guest blogger Susan Routh! Susan (Grady Co) responded to my note from Sunday. I saw her yesterday at the ABCD in-service and asked her to share her story. Here it is:


Ninnekah Fire:
The Ninnekah Fire was discovered approximately 2:30 p.m. on Friday, August 3rd, south and east of Ninnekah.  In the end, 9,600 acres were burned and one house and one barn were destroyed.  

The homeowners that lost their home are active agriculture producers in Grady County and she is a 50 year member of OHCE. We have been told that the firefighters evacuated many homeowners on Friday evening in that area and the homeowners were not allowed to return until Saturday morning where they saw first-hand the damage.

We have been told of some of the challenges that producers had when trying to negotiate through county roads to get to their homes or pastures during the fire.  Note from GP: I am working on materials about how to protect your home. These are dangerous times.

The Ninnekah community has been very supportive. The first fundraiser is planned to help repair firefighting units on August 19th with a Bar-B-Que dinner. Additional fundraisers will be held to support this family who lost their homes. It is small community who cares for its residents.

Thank you, Susan for the story and the photos. We are all thinking of those who have suffered. The materials that Ag Comm is helping put together will address MANY of the topics touched on here.

As a reminder, weather radios aren't just for weather. The radios will alert you to emergencies within the specified radius. This means if parts of your county are being evacuated, you'll hear about it on your radio. I am going to refer to them as emergency radios from now on in order to emphasize this point.

Issue Teams
We want to prepare Oklahomans for all kinds of disaster and reduce risk. Where does this fit into Issue Teams? The first five people to tell me exactly what issue team and the measurable outcome fits this topic will be entered into a drawing to win a Red Cross emergency radio. Please explain your answer and give one action you think consumers would be willing to take to meet the measurable outcome.

More next week...

GPeek