Longmont Public Media produced and released a video interview on April 29 with a panel of local officials to talk about the way the City of Longmont handles disaster emergency response. The panel discussion included the voices of City Manager Harold Dominguez, Director of the Office of Emergency Management Deon Pfenning, Natural Resources Project Manager Jim Crick, Sandy Cedar, and Fire Chief Dan Higgins.
They discussed a global increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, including fires, floods, and tornadoes. Longmont, specifically, faces risks of floods and wildfires. The panel discussed the 2013 flood, the Marshall Fire in Boulder, and the recent Berthoud grass fire. The City of Longmont uses an “all-hazards” approach, which means they prepare for a variety of potential scenarios, but stay flexible to respond to emerging threats and unforeseen events.
During the 2013 flood, there was a lack of bilingual communication, but the city now has designated translators and trained staff for internet updates. The public can access longmontcolorado.gov for emergency information, which will also be posted to social media. BOCO alerts may also be used and the Reachwell app can be used for bilingual alerts.
During the flood, evacuation orders were ignored by some residents which required dangerous rescue operations. “One thing that we really learned is when the message went out, ‘Please leave your house, vacate, it’s going to flood,’ a number of people didn’t believe us,” Fire Chief Higgins said. “We had to put our people at risk to go make rescues in those flooding houses.”
The city started the Resilient St. Vrain Project to rebuild the creek following the 2013 flood while mitigating future flooding. This involves restoring natural stream functions and reducing erosion. Construction for the project began in 2023 and is expected to be completed this summer.
The city is also utilizing cameras to gather more data and improve preparedness measures. “We’re finding that the camera system we’re building will monitor stream flows,” Dominguez said. “One of the things we learned in the flood was data was bad because every gauge got blown out. This will allow us to utilize camera technology to see what’s actually happening in the field.”
The city utilizes an Incident Command System that can be scaled depending on the size of the emergency. All city employees are potential responders. “It’s modular,” Dominguez said. “You can build on it and expand out. It’s designed to scale, and in some cases, you can even move to a regional command.”
Some other tools the city is utilizing is GIS mapping for disaster impact modeling and planning. Drones are equipped with LiDAR and thermal imaging to map and assess river flows.
Fire Chief Higgins praised emergency dispatchers for being the start of the process when natural disasters are occurring. “I wanted to give a shout out to our emergency dispatchers,” Higgins said. “They're really the tip of the spear because they’re receiving all these phone calls and have to process all that information.”
