Boone County Emergency Management to hold damage assessment exercise Saturday
BOONE COUNTY, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Boone County Office of Emergency Management held a damage assessment exercise Saturday in multiple neighborhoods across the county from 8 a.m. through 2 p.m.
Those neighborhoods include Hillview Acres in unincorporated Boone County, Smithton Ridge and Bellwood in Columbia, and Palomino Ridge in Ashland.
According to a press release from the department, today's exercise involves simulating tornado damage. Crews will place small signs in front of homes in neighborhoods in Boone County. Disaster volunteers will assess the level of simulated damage to the home.
Matthew Brown, who is the Training and Exercise Specialist for Boone County Office of Emergency Management, believes that damage assessment serves various purposes. It helps in identifying the areas that have been impacted by a disaster, which in turn helps in dispatching first responders promptly. It also facilitates access to resources and services for affected individuals, and obtaining disaster declarations to secure essential funding for community recovery.
As crews walked house to house they were met with images of a natural disaster damage to the homes and asked on an app called 'survey123' to asses the damage homes.
"So what the participants are doing now here in the fields is they have gotten a list of damage that has supposedly happened to the home in this tornado simulation. And they're looking at the damage. And they're also taking into account the environment that we are in. Are we near power lines? Are we near trees? Is there a creek around? Because all those factors are going to come into play when we have a real-life disaster," said Ann Vastemans, Regional Communications Manager for the American Red Cross.
In a real disaster, this method of assessment is used to decide on the type of emergency response and humanitarian services needed. The data collected from the 'Survey123' assessments feeds back to the Emergency Operations Center, enabling organizers to monitor the crews' progress and assess the extent of damage in real-time.
Multiple agencies participated in Saturday's training. Boone County CERT, American Red Cross, Civil Air Patrol, Team Rubicon and Boone County ARES.
If you would like to learn more about how to be better prepared for disasters click here.
