Map Your Neighborhood project pushes local disaster readiness

PATEROS – One Of the informational booths at last weekend’s River Run and Salmon Bake at Pateros Memorial Park was the Map Your Neighborhood (MYN) project being promoted by the Pateros-Brewster Community Resource Center and its director, Gene Dowers.

MYN is a campaign designed to enlist participation by neighborhood groups to inventory the skills and equipment available in the event a natural disaster strikes. Dowers was distributing a self-explanatory handout that prompts each resident to complete a roster of topics related to skills and knowledge and equipment and supplies. Working under the premise that in a disaster, your neighbors are your closest source of help, the information-gathering campaign requests feedback concerning Who knows what? Who has what? And Who can do what?

Under the banner of Skills and Knowledge, respondents are asked to list abilities including everything from first aid skills, child care skills, and firefighting skills, to HAM radio, carpentry, electrical, and plumbing skills.
Under the heading of Equipment and Supplies are tools such as chain saws, ladder and crow bar to generator, NOAA radio, and camp stove.

The instruction pamphlet includes a grid page for a sketch of neighborhood streets and structures, gas meter locations, building lots as well as residents who may need extra help.
In concise language, both English and Spanish the guide also includes nine steps that residents should take following a disaster.

They include:
1.Take care of loved ones.
2.Dress for safety.
3.Check home natural gas and propane.
4.Shut off house water main.
5.Place HELP or OK sign attached to handout back page to front door or window.
6.Put fire extinguisher on sidewalk or someplace visible to neighbor.

The last three steps involve working with neighbors at a pre-arranged gathering site to form teams to handle various response actions.

PBCRC’s MYN project includes some 60 neighborhood groups in the Pateros-Brewster school districts. Funding for the campaign was provided by a grant arranged through the Long Term Recovery Group’s Unmet Needs Committee.

Those wishing to learn more about the MYN project can visit the Pateros-Brewster Community Resource Center Facebook site or stop by the office at 169 Pateros Mall, Suite A, in Pateros.