In a Q&A, Kris Hamlet, the director of the Utah Division of Emergency Management, explains how Utahns can ready themselves for future emergencies.
, some of which have required their own state and local emergency declarations.
How helpful were the plans Utah had in place for the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Were parts of the response, like combating misinformation and vaccine resistance, unforeseen by planners? Rumors and misinformation can negatively impact emergency managers and first responders’ efforts in a disaster. From inaccurate concerns that a larger aftershock would follow the March 2020 Magna earthquake to misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, we’ve seen this happen in Utah in just the last two years. How do state emergency managers combat and respond to these messaging challenges?
Hamlet: Our initial plan for distributing vaccines included high-risk groups and then different prioritized levels of essential workers. It was going to be hard to justify which workers would receive the vaccine before others because all made a compelling case for deserving to be vaccinated first. Hamlet: We continue to have conversations about what type of personal protective equipment and what quantities need to be stored for future pandemics. This is the first time in a century that Utah hospitals and health departments did not have enough PPE on hand and could not get it through normal ordering channels. The entire globe was in competition for some very scarce resources, such as gloves, masks, gowns, face shields, booties and even hand sanitizer dispensers.
When it comes to drought, there are serious considerations that need to be made about how we obtain and use water in a very dry state. There are considerations for future reservoirs to increase water storage in wet years.
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