The Issaquah Citizen Corps is preparing to get citizens ready for emergencies in the community.
The nine-class spring Citizen Emergency Response Training series begins March 18 and culminates in a disaster simulation drill on May 2.
The goal of the class series is to make residents aware of the dangers around them and teach them to be ready to respond and survive using skills such as first aid, supply building and search and rescue.
Issaquah is susceptible to a number of risks from natural phenomena, including high winds, power outages and flooding. But chief among the area’s major risks is seismic activity.
“If you look at a fault line map of the area, one runs right along the I-90 corridor, so we have a high susceptibility to earthquakes,” Corpswoman Susana Ortiz said.
Additionally, because Issaquah was once a coal mining community, the surrounding hills and mountains contain large networks of hollowed out underground spaces that could lose structural integrity in a quake. And areas of the city built over former landfill space are prone to ground liquefaction, Ortiz said.
Manmade disasters, too, could threaten the highway-straddling city in the form of truck accidents involving chemical or other hazardous freight. Ortiz pointed to the October 2014 jackknifing of a semitruck on Interstate highway 5 near Northgate, Seattle, in which the truck spilled 40 gallons of diesel fuel.
The Issaquah Citizen Corps was formed in 2007 and has since trained more than 500 Issaquah citizens in disaster readiness.
Ortiz said it was important to be prepared for disasters before they happen.
“People just need to take that first step by talking to their families or building up supplies,” she said.
But the main challenge is keeping students involved in disaster readiness well after class is out.
“We find if people don’t take action within the first 24 to 48 hours, they’re less likely to take actions later,” Ortiz said. “If you don’t buy your first aid kit today, it’s that much easier to put it off to next week, next month and so on. So we try to encourage action every class to motivate them further and keep the momentum going.”
More information on the series can be found at IssaquahCitizenCorps.org or by calling 425-301-9101.
