The main disaster response coalition for Jefferson, Broadwater and Lewis & Clark counties is working to solidify joint emergency planning in the wake of the mid-December windstorm that dealt much of Jefferson County its longest power outage in decades.
At its Dec. 23 meeting, the Tri-County Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD), which was founded in 2017 to help coordinate disaster response and deliver services during disasters, acknowledged that emergency shelters had been slow to open during the outage.
The Red Cross, a medical services nonprofit and COAD member, maintains pre-arranged shelter sites in Helena, Boulder, and Butte. When the storm hit, COAD prioritized Helena because the Boulder shelter at the Church of the Latter Day Saints lacked a backup generator.
In the end, the shelter at Helena’s Echo Church opened after 7 p.m. on Dec. 18th – some two hours after power had been restored in Boulder, Basin, Jefferson City, and Clancy. The Red Cross had begun working to open its Boulder shelter, but stopped once electricity returned.
COAD Chair Doug Wheeler said it would’ve “been great” to have a shelter open sooner, but COAD responded to the information it had at the time and opened the shelter after a NorthWestern Energy representative told them outages could drag on for a second night.
“If the storm had happened during colder weather, or we were informed of any displaced people due to the storm, we would’ve had a shelter up the first evening,” Wheeler said. Even with the Helena shelter open, no one utilized the service.
Doug Dodge, Jefferson County Director of Emergency Management, said that prioritizing the Helena shelter had been the right move, because it granted access to the most people and maximized the use of volunteers and staffers who are mainly based in the Capitol.
He thought the coalition’s plans were generally effective, yet that the area could always be better prepared for outages. “I remain concerned about our overall level of preparedness,” he said in an email. “Had we seen colder temperatures or a longer outage duration, I believe we would have seen more severe consequences.” (See Dodge’s piece on emergency preparedness, page 3).
Coalition members also considered how they might more reliably establish emergency warming shelters for the unhoused. A task traditionally led by local religious groups, their efforts have been slowed in recent years by their struggle to acquire increasingly expensive liability insurance.
Some wondered whether Montanans are shelter folk. Dodge said he had found that Jefferson County residents tend to stay away from shelters except in extreme circumstances, such as wildfires that force them to evacuate their homes.
One local example is Helena’s St Peter’s Health hospital, which offers to pay for hotel rooms for area residents who feel they are at risk of injury at home. No locals took up the offer during the windstorm, according to the Red Cross.
“People in Montana don’t want to seek shelter, so they’ll try to find other means, either wait it out or go and hang out,” said Susan Hawthorne, the Red Cross’s COAD representative. “I know all the hotels were pretty much booked out. So, that gives you an idea of where a lot of people went.”
At the pre-holiday meeting, COAD members also discussed ways to better organize shelter supplies. Hawthorne proposed a supply tracking system involving a master list to be passed out to participating churches and shelters, enabling them to record the availability of beds, medicines, water, food and more.
In addition, COAD is seeking storage space for its collection of cots, blankets, and other shelter supplies. The coalition is weighing whether to buy a storage unit or find a business willing to donate storage space. Those interested in pitching in should visit: https://www.lccountymt.gov/Emergency-Management/Tri-County-COAD.
Tri-County COAD member organizations are mainly Helena-based, including the Salvation Army Helena Corps, American Red Cross Montana Region, St. Peter’s Health, Safeway, and the United Methodist Committee on Relief. The lone Jefferson County representative is the county’s Office of Emergency Management, led by Doug Dodge.
Not every region of Montana has a joint response team like COAD, but several do, including a similar coalition between Gallatin, Madison, and Park Counties. It’s called Southwest Montana COAD, which recently helped organize wildfire mitigation efforts in Gallatin County.
After the storm, COAD offered to clear fallen trees, but no Jefferson County residents reported needing help, according to Dodge. The Lewis and Clark Emergency Services office also surveyed around 150 people across the three counties to assess the damage.
Most people reported nothing more than blown-off shingles, but NorthWestern Energy representative Wes Fiest said the company had received several calls from residents accusing the state’s top electricity provider of prioritizing wealthier urban areas over poorer rural ones. Feist said NWE prioritizes areas with the most customers, which is unrelated to income.
COAD members agreed to remain vigilant, acknowledging that the windstorm’s impact could have been a great deal worse.
“We were all very close to [this] being a much bigger incident,” said Dodge.
