North Strabane's Emergency Management Agency Kicks Off Public Outreach Initiative

Emergencies happen.

Could be a microburst (such as the one that happened in Eighty Four last year). Could be a flood.

Regardless, North Strabane’s Emergency Management Agency officials want you to know they are there for you.

In fact, the department has embarked on a new effort to reach out to the community—one that has started with an increased presence on the North Strabane Township website.

EMA deals with the four main stages of an emergency—preparation, mitigation, response and recovery.

North Strabane Emergency Management Coordinator Paul Shiring said that the department has begun the new initiative by puting links on the site to help residents during that first stage: Preparation.

Now, anyone with access to the Internet via their computers or phones has access to a number of resources in the community by simply clicking on the featured links.

One of those links is to information specific to the weather in our area.

Other links EMA has shared include ones to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where residents can find a host of information and forms that might be needed when emergencies—weather and otherwise—happen.

Shiring said that by clicking on those links, residents can also learn how to better prepare themselves for upcoming emergencies.

“There is information on those sites that teach people how to build emergency kits and now to make their own first aid kits,” Shiring said.

Sure, residents may always call the township, EMA and fire officials should they have questions or concerns.

But Shiring said the web presence will give residents 24-7 access to the information on a medium that so many people now utilize before thinking to pick up the phone.

“Nowadays everything is so Internet-based, whereas 20 years ago, people would just pick up the phone,” he said. “They aren’t as quick to pick up that phone anymore, so we need to adapt.”

Shiring, who called the outreach initiative a “work in progress,” said there is more in store for EMA over the next year.

“This is only the beginning,” he said, noting that alerts could be posted to the site to keep residents abreast of everything from weather events to traffic restrictions.

“We want residents to know where are here for them,” Shiring said.