S Grant - Authorize Emergency Preparedness Grant Application to BlueCross/BlueShield of North Carolina Foundation

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i~ hurricanes, two tornadoes, four winter storms, one windstorm, and one moderate flood. In addition to these wide area disasters, the County has also experienced more localized emergencies such as hazardous materials emergencies and lockdowns in schools. The County is at risk and vulnerable to all types of natural disasters with the exception of tsunami and volcanoes. With this disaster history, the Department of Emergency Management has identified that there is a pressing life safety need to make contact with residents within our county. Communications during disasters continues to be a concern, whether they are caused by natural or man-made events. Experience has shown that there are two ways to quickly and easily provide information immediately before, during, and after a disaster. The first option is the use of radio and the second through telephone lines. The Department of Emergency Management has investigated both of these options in regard to the most quick and efficient methods of getting infom~ation to the public. For the radio option, the department researched the efficacy of utilizing the existing system.established by the National Weather Service with their Weather Radia network. This network will activate specialty designed radios that the public may purchase during severe weather watches and warning. However during internally conducted surveys, our Department has found that most residents within the county do not possess NOAH weather radios. Consequently, if the county were to take the initiative to provide each household with a NOAH weather radio, we estimate it would be a one-time cost of $1,478,177,11 if one were provided for each of the 49,289 households in the county. There would also be an annual maintenance cost to maintain the program as radios were lost, damaged, stolen, or for new households. These radios also will not provide much information, beyond the type of hazard the radio was activated for, to the deaf and hard of hearing community. This is assuming the county was able to receive a special price of $29,99 for each radio. The department has used private radio with some success, however the Department is reliant upon the radio station to air the particular message that needs tp be presented, and the residents whom the Department wishes to mach must have their radios on. and be actively listening to receive the message. The second option explored was using the telephone to notify residents of information during emergencies and remind them to make preparations before emergencies occur. This option was found to have a higher success rate in data received from across the country. Utilizing local data, the Department found that the landline telephone system stays intact for the most part before and during an emergency, since the telephone companies have begun placing the switching systems on backup.power. The Department found that most residents in Orange County have telephone service, and that most households have their telephone numbers available the Department through marketing companies., Further, County agencies, including ours, have received requests from residents asking if we could call them periodically to remind them to prepare for disasters, as well as contacting them during disasters. Therefore, our emergency preparedness planning committee determined that the pressing need in the county is for an emergency telephone not cation system. The primary target for this grant is serving the members of our community with special needs and our aging population. The County has 94,398 persons who are aged 5 years or older who report that they have a disability of some type. Of those 94,398 2