About that 2424 "public safety analysis"....

Today, on 8/23, our City Council asked our Fire, Police and OEM chiefs to come and assure them that they have it all under control.  We have to assume that this is "the public safety analysis" Councilman Tom Strand asked for and council voted to deliver, in addition to an "independent" intersection study.  There appears to be no other study done on the "public safety analysis" as many have been asking repeatedly for the last month.

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They discussed a potential piece of software called Zonehaven which we had seen over a week ago.  It looks like a delightful piece of software to help with real time "plume" modeling, but it is not the same as the industry standard, FLEET, which was created by world evacuation experts at Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and is used by MIT Lincoln Lab as well as the only software endorsed by FEMA.  It has been verified to have a +/-15% accuracy rate.  It's an absolute absurdity that our city isn't already using this software.  It's our opinion that they don't want those clearance evacuation times published because they fear that there would be developer backlash....so, if you haven't spoken up, email council and copy the press.  We deserve to know this and our evacuation routes like cities across America do.  This is called emergency planning.  On what planet would anyone choose door knocking over evacuation modeling and route publishing?  

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Here's what former Fire Battalion chief, R.C. Smith had to say about today's presentation: 

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"After attending the city council work session, I was disappointed that the question that the WUI neighborhood associations were asking, "How long would it take to evacuate a specific neighborhood?", never got close to being answered.  The WUI neighborhood associations were asking for a study to be done using a specific program.  The Fire Chief stated they were looking at a different program which is fine, but I don't know why both programs couldn't be used to advantage?  I was also caught off guard that it's been nine years since Waldo Canyon, and the Fire department is just getting to purchasing software to assist with evacuations?"

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The best question of the day went to Dave Donelson....watch the dance.  We will post the full video here when we get it.

Photos courtesy of Donna Strom of Cheyenne Canon.  Thank you, Donna.

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