"The Great Coastal Gale of 2007: Lessons in Community Resilience"

Nine days without power. 

Camellia bushes ripping wires from houses. 

A dialysis center with no generator. 

🌪️ In this episode of Women of the Northwest, host Jan Johnson sits down with five incredible women — a community engagement coordinator, two former school principals, an ER doctor, and a retired emergency management veteran — to relive the 2007 Great Coastal Gale and share what it really takes to build a resilient community. 

From ham radios to grab-and-go bags to knowing your neighbors, this conversation is packed with real, hard-won wisdom. 

Plus: don't miss the free Get Ready Fair on Thurs, Oct 22 at Jewel School! 

🎃 Tune in now.

  Subscribe to the Women of the Northwest podcast for inspiring stories and adventures.
Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

[00:01] Jan: Are you looking for an inspiring listen? Something to motivate you? You've come to the right place. Welcome to Women of the Northwest, where we have conversations with ordinary women leading extraordinary lives.

[00:12] Motivating, inspiring, compelling.

[00:18] Welcome, everybody. This is the episode that you won't want to miss. I'm Jan Johnson, your host of Women of the Northwest,

[00:26] Ordinary Women Leading Extraordinary Lives. And boy, do I have something for you today that's so great.

[00:32] So we're going to talk about the great coastal gale, which some of you will remember from 2007.

[00:38] And we want to talk about emergency management.

[00:41] So I have. From classic Community Emergency Management,

[00:46] I have Jen Monson. Hi.

[00:48] Jen: Hi. Hello.

[00:49] Jan: And then I also have guest, Sheila Roley, who was a Seaside principal at that time. Principal at that time.

[00:56] Sandy Brown, who was also a principal at Gearhart at that time.

[01:00] And Dr. Carolyn Merton Wells,

[01:04] who was

[01:05] Carolyn: a doctor at that time in the emergency department.

[01:07] Jan: In the emergency department. And Charlene Larson, who is now the wonderful person who takes care of Charlie Larson Performing Arts.

[01:21] So welcome, everyone.

[01:23] Jan: So, Jen, would you tell us about

[01:25] Jen: your role with emergency management? Yeah. Thank you. And thank you so much for having us here. This is really special for me. These are many of my role models,

[01:36] local celebrities, and the master of disaster herself as well, Charlene Larson. Thank you for having us here.

[01:43] So, yeah, so I work for Clatsop County Emergency Management, and I am a community engagement coordinator.

[01:50] And we're so privileged that you had us on here to talk about the great coastal gale, because we have an event coming up.

[01:57] Free Get Ready Fair at Jewel School,

[02:00] Thursday,

[02:01] October 22, from 5:30 to 7:30. All sorts of fun activities, but more importantly,

[02:07] resources,

[02:08] plans, options,

[02:10] even a few fun crafts with some scary moulage and makeup and fun stuff for kids, as well as a costume contest and free dinner as well that evening. But that is an event that I'm hoping the community feels welcome to come out to.

[02:27] But today we're going to be talking about the importance of building community resilience. And these fine ladies have a lot to share with us just about their own experiences. And I have a few questions for them that I think can teach us a little bit about what it means to be a resilient community.

[02:46] And then we'll look forward to seeing folks at the fair to continue to kind of build those insights and skills.

[02:52] Jan: That sounds so wonderful. Really important, right? Maybe each of you can tell us what your roles were at the time or more, what your involvement was.

[03:02] Sheila Roley: Yeah,

[03:03] well, my major role at that time was being the principal at Seaside High School. And the storm did not start during the school day. It was an evening onset,

[03:13] but it became pretty wild fairly quickly.

[03:18] And I lived in a story at the time where I still live, and I was at the top of the hill on Jerome and my husband and I had has a little small old house with single pane windows and they were starting to vibrate and we thought we should probably go down and sleep in the basement because we,

[03:37] we were getting a little nervous and it was literally howling. And I've always lived in the Pacific Northwest where there's a lot of rain and there's a lot of wind and you know, just the regular storms that we have in the winter.

[03:51] But it was evident pretty quickly that this was different.

[03:56] And so my role was what I was thinking first is, okay, what are we going to do tomorrow? And but it was obvious that there would be no power and so we knew there would be school.

[04:07] But how do we communicate with everyone and how do we keep ourselves and our neighbors safe?

[04:15] And you know, what, what were the steps and you know, trying to think of those on the spot.

[04:21] I think we had a little bit of an advantage over folks who hadn't lived on the north coast because we were used to big storms,

[04:28] just not this big.

[04:31] Carolyn: Yeah, that was big.

[04:34] Jen: And what about you, Charlene Larson? Tell us, tell us a little bit about how you experienced the great coastal gale.

[04:41] Charlene: Well, we were at home on Highway 30 and I had been retired for a couple years.

[04:48] My last opportunity for employment was with the Clatsop County Sheriff's Office.

[04:56] And the part-time emergency manager,

[05:00] Gene Strong had always said to me, be prepared,

[05:04] be prepared.

[05:05] These are kind of the things you need to do in order to kind of withstand what's going to come at us eventually.

[05:15] And of course,

[05:16] yes, that's a really good idea, but you never are, you never are fully prepared. So when that storm hit,

[05:24] same experience that Sheila was having, even though we were on Highway 30 and along the river,

[05:31] it was like a hurricane.

[05:34] And I went outside to kind of look around and see what was happening in the yard and the camellia bushes were unscrewing themselves from the ground.

[05:46] And I thought, hmm,

[05:48] this is a little different.

[05:50] And as they unscrewed themselves from the ground, they became entangled in the service wire. Coming into the house and knowing from my past experience of working for Pacific Power,

[06:04] Charlene, this is probably not a good place to be and you don't have your hard hat on and so you better get in the house. And sure enough,

[06:13] you Know, the unscrewing of the camellia bushes wrapping around the service entrance,

[06:19] pulled the service entrance from the house,

[06:23] and then, of course,

[06:24] everything went dark, but it stayed dark for a very long time.

[06:29] Yeah.

[06:30] And just that experience of knowing,

[06:35] boy, you weren't quite as prepared as Jean Strong had told you, you better be.

[06:40] And so you. You think through that.

[06:44] If I'm not prepared,

[06:47] how are my neighbors doing?

[06:49] Jan: I think part of that comes from not having experienced something at that level before, too. You know, when you don't experience it that way,

[06:58] you don't think through all the things you might need to know about.

[07:03] Jen: You paint quite a picture, Charlene. I would expect nothing less. The unscrewing of the camellia motions will stick with me.

[07:11] Dr. Wells,

[07:12] you were working in the emergency department at the time?

[07:16] Carolyn: Well, I had to get to the emergency department because I lived in Seaside,

[07:19] between Seaside and Cannon beach and the area beyond where we usually get those huge floods that keep people from driving.

[07:27] But so the road that I lived on had to be cleared, and luckily,

[07:33] Andy Pittard lived down the road, and he had all the equipment and the huge trucks, and he gave me a ride to the Seaside Fire Department,

[07:42] and I caught a cab to go to the emergency department,

[07:45] and I left behind my husband and children with a roof that had been breached and no power,

[07:52] which meant that we had no running water, as well as no heat, no lights, and all that sort of thing. So that was a little hard. But when I got to work,

[08:01] it was also sort of eerie because everything was sort of at half light because we were on generators,

[08:07] and I'd never worked in the emergency department on generators before,

[08:10] and we could definitely see, but it just was so quiet and it was so dark.

[08:16] But I got to work, and unfortunately, my replacement lived in Portland,

[08:22] and So I spent 36 hours in the emergency department before someone could get to replace me.

[08:28] Yeah, I was there for the whole initial part and. Cmh.

[08:32] Jen: Yeah. Wow. Thank you for your service and also even your transportation story. It takes a village.

[08:38] Carolyn: Yeah, exactly.

[08:39] Exactly.

[08:40] Yes.

[08:41] I had several people help me get to work,

[08:44] and then I'll just say that the community,

[08:47] when I got to work,

[08:49] the ham radio operators were there and they were in charge and they were doing their thing and they saved our bacon.

[08:56] Jen: Yeah. Shout out to ham radio operators.

[08:58] Carolyn: Yes, yes. They were there right away.

[09:01] Jen: Right.

[09:01] Carolyn: And they had a little command center. It was like. It was awesome. It was like television.

[09:06] Jen: Right. Those were the heroes of the 80s.

[09:08] Carolyn: They were. Yeah.

[09:10] Jen: Sandy. Or shall I say Principal Brown, Former Principal Brown.

[09:14] Sande: Retired.

[09:16] Jen: What was your experience at Coastal Camp?

[09:18] Sande: Sort of similar to Sheila's. Starting out, definitely with the weather, and I'm not expecting it to be that big of a storm. In fact, I had. My parents were visiting.

[09:26] My father had dementia, and when you get to lessons learned, remind me to

[09:31] Carolyn: come back to that story.

[09:32] Sande: But anyway,

[09:33] so I convinced them to stay. So we have storms all the time, no big deal. And so, you know, it was. And it was, you know, pretty awfully amazing.

[09:40] Carolyn: And.

[09:41] Sande: And trees were falling around our house. We lived in Gearhart, and.

[09:44] And, you know, in a part where there are lots of big fir trees. And so they were falling all around our house, worried that they were going to fall on us.

[09:51] And I was sleeping on the floor. And I remember one point, the floor moved. The. The. The air went under our house and our. Our floor moved up and down, you know,

[10:00] so,

[10:01] yeah, it was a little scary there. But the next day or the next, you know, we were out of power for nine days as well.

[10:08] Phones, cell phones didn't work in the beginning, and we did have some landlines.

[10:16] The.

[10:17] But you could only call the people that had the same landline prefixes you did. So the 717s could call the 717s, 739s could call the 739s, the 440s could call the 440s,

[10:27] and that was. That was the only way you could communicate. So that's weird. So, yeah, it was very weird until the. Until there was this one little spot eventually down by the COVID in Seaside where you could actually talk to people.

[10:39] And I could call my sister and say,

[10:41] my parents are still here,

[10:43] so they're coming home soon.

[10:46] So anyway, yeah,

[10:48] it was a big week,

[10:52] Jen: and I appreciate the conversation about what community members, too. We'll certainly be talking about that in a moment. But, Jan, what was your experience like during the storm?

[11:01] Jan: Well, like you said, it was at night, so, yeah, getting through. Of course, the power goes out all the time around here.

[11:08] That's nothing unusual.

[11:10] But you don't think it's going to be for nine days that it's out. So the next morning,

[11:17] I looked out and I thought, oh, that was a little bit of a big storm, because the whole overhang of our barn was down and flooded. There was, you know, flooding all throughout.

[11:30] And we have sheep, so they were looking for a place to stay because it was not a lot of options for them. Very high. But,

[11:40] you know, because it was such a long period of time, you run out of gas for the generator. Or so you only have electricity so far. And to get out of our.

[11:49] We're in Lower Brownsmead,

[11:51] so to get out just to the main road was. You know, there were. We counted 15 trees that were down. And so how many people across community, they just all jump out with their chainsaws and get to work,

[12:03] you know, which help. But it still takes a long time to even be able to get out,

[12:08] you know, but you couldn't get to a gas station or anything else to redo. And we were kind of prepared.

[12:16] The good thing is that my husband, who's a back to the earth person,

[12:22] we had wood heat so we could stay warm. We could cook things,

[12:27] you know, because we had the cook stove, you know, wood heat going on. And so that's important,

[12:33] you know, with there. And then our water was from a spring, so it was, you know,

[12:37] so we didn't have to worry about that.

[12:39] Sande: So.

[12:39] Jen: Yeah, that's fantastic. It sounds like you were feeling fairly resilient at that point. Yes. Yeah, sure. Those are some pretty critical skills.

[12:48] Jan: Yeah. Because there were so many people that couldn't even cook and didn't have heat. So that's, you know.

[12:54] Jen: Yeah. Talking of community vulnerabilities, I always think about special needs populations.

[12:59] So those are folks that experience disabilities.

[13:03] We mentioned. Was it your parent that had some dementia at the time? So love to hear about that. And I guess I'm also kind of including in that group.

[13:12] Farm animals, too. Right? Animals, pets. They have special needs as well.

[13:18] And then, you know, there are all sorts of community members that are experiencing barriers that are kind of difficult to prepare for. When we think about disasters like this, we think about even those who may speak English as an additional language.

[13:34] We think about the farmers. We think about those that are looking after pets. We think about folks that are caring for others with.

[13:41] With special needs. I just wonder, does anyone have anything you kind of want to add to that. That conversation? What was that like?

[13:48] Shepherding, Assisting community members through what was a really difficult time?

[13:54] Jan: Our neighbors were dairymen. Yeah. You know, so, I mean, all that equipment is.

[13:59] Jen: Mm.

[14:00] Jan: Powered by, you know,

[14:02] backup generator. But still, it was not. So then where are they sending the milk? And you can't,

[14:07] you know, refrigerate it or what are you gonna do?

[14:11] Sande: You know what?

[14:11] Sheila roley: I remember about that time, that first day after the storm, that was really a wonderful sense of community that did occur, like, in our neighborhood. And there was one man who actually worked at Seaside is a PE Teacher, Cory Vlacha, and he had a big truck and he just got in his truck and started driving around the streets he could get to and knocking on the doors of people he knew just to make sure that we were okay.

[14:43] And,

[14:43] and, and that was really just a nice feeling. And at that point, we didn't have a lot of neighbors that we knew. Well, now, you know, we're. We've been close to our neighbors for a long time.

[14:53] And also Doug Dougherty, who was our boss,

[14:56] he had.

[14:58] Has been very focused for as long as I've known him on the risk of tsunamis in this area.

[15:05] And so we became ham radio operators. All the school administrators became ham radio operators. And that was really a benefit as well because we.

[15:14] Sande: Result of that.

[15:15] Sheila roley: Yeah.

[15:18] Jan: When he couldn't communicate.

[15:19] Sheila roley: When he couldn't communicate on the phone tree part.

[15:21] But the trophy. But that was, you know,

[15:24] the genesis of getting that going. And.

[15:27] But I. We had a neighbor that lived over another block and had. Was in the process of putting a corrugated roof on their house.

[15:37] And we look out and the roof, it means like, it's like the wizard of Oz. The roof was literally flying over the house across the street from ours and landing in the street.

[15:49] It didn't hit anybody, didn't break anything. But it was just the level of excitement in that storm just really can't be matched.

[15:58] Sande: And.

[15:58] Jan: Yeah, so.

[15:59] Jen: And you're using excitement with air quotes, I notice. So that our listeners are aware. Yeah, go ahead, Sandy.

[16:05] Sande: I can talk about my, you know, my dad.

[16:07] Jan: Top.

[16:09] Sande: You know, one of the lessons learned was pay attention to the weather reports because it was reporting a big storm. But I don't. It wasn't. We didn't have that much information that we probably would have now, I think.

[16:19] But,

[16:20] but. And maybe moving out of that area or something, if you knew something was coming.

[16:25] But he,

[16:27] he was very. He was very fragile as well and very slender, so we had to keep him warm. And we didn't have a generator at that time. We had a fireplace, though, so making sure that, you know, we had enough wood, something.

[16:38] Both Mike and I, my husband and I had worked for the Forest Service, and so we were prepared in many ways,

[16:43] but not for their comfort. We were prepared for our comfort. So,

[16:47] you know, if I could do it over again,

[16:49] we would have had a generator there and making sure that, you know, he stayed warm. But we. I parked him right in front of the fireplace and we fed the fireplace, you know, constantly.

[16:57] Thankfully, it wasn't very cold that week. Right. It was very. Actually fairly warm. And it didn't rain after that. It was really nice.

[17:05] Jen: So I'm imagining that vision.

[17:14] Carolyn: I think of two vulnerable populations when I think about that storm. And one is oxygen dependent people who were terrified.

[17:21] And as a result of that, my descriptions of that to my husband later in life, he became oxygen dependent. And I can't tell you how many cylinders of oxygen we had in our home because he was so worried that he would run out.

[17:35] And the other population,

[17:38] the dialysis center at this, that time was in the Park Medical building.

[17:42] And I'm at work. Everything's, you know, we're just adjusting, figuring out what we're going to do.

[17:47] And the dialysis center starts sending us patients because they didn't have a generator.

[17:52] And you can temporarily lower people's fluid levels and,

[17:58] and potassium levels,

[18:00] but not for very long. And so I didn't know how many people in the camp community were on dialysis. But here's the miracle.

[18:08] Shortly before the storm,

[18:10] our,

[18:10] our radiology department brought in Dr. Bill Armington, who had worked at Charity Hospital during Katrina.

[18:17] Jan: Oh, wow.

[18:18] Carolyn: So I'm like,

[18:19] no generator in the dialysis center, he said,

[18:23] called the Coast Guard. They have plenty of generators. So he knew exactly what to do and literally saved the day for I don't know how many people because he'd had that prior experience.

[18:33] So if he hadn't, we wouldn't have been able to send them to Portland or we wouldn't have been able to manage them here for the amount of time that we would have needed to.

[18:42] And dozens of people would have been in dire straits.

[18:48] So that was the,

[18:49] that was one, one of many miraculous things that happened during that time.

[18:53] So we had that resource of Dr. Armington, the Coast Guard.

[18:57] Speaker E: Boom.

[18:58] Carolyn: Had a generator. I would never have thought to call it Coast Guard. I would have had no idea.

[19:02] Jen: Right. So, wow. Sounds like his experience was very valuable.

[19:07] Carolyn: Very valuable. So there's a lot of people in the medical community that are using devices that require electricity.

[19:14] Speaker E: Yeah.

[19:14] Carolyn: And, you know, think of all the sleep apnea patients out there. You know, I mean, there's a whole bunch of people that need to have some alternative way to manage their devices.

[19:24] Jen: That population medically dependent on power. Yep.

[19:29] Carolyn: And Hurricane Katrina and refrigeration for insulin, all kinds of things.

[19:33] Jen: Absolutely, absolutely. So doing that pre planning, if you're somebody who experiences a disability, you know that you're dependent on power, it's really critical.

[19:42] Carolyn: Have a plan.

[19:42] Jen: Yep, have a plan.

[19:44] Sande: And medications, too. Making sure you have. Don't,

[19:48] don't wait till, you know, two days before you run out. Before you fill your prescription, you know, so that you can have those.

[19:54] Carolyn: I never let my car get empty. Never, never. Because, you know, you don't know if you're going to need to drive someplace in a hurry.

[20:04] Speaker E: And I think, you know, moving. Moving forward as we, as we prepare that we learned lessons of not having communication,

[20:17] but knowing your neighborhood in good times and bad times.

[20:23] A lot of people came together after that experience to really get to know their neighbors and determine from that, knowing your neighbors who had what,

[20:37] who had needs,

[20:38] who had skills and doing those kind of potlucks, gatherings together in blue sky time, we call it,

[20:50] to really know how to interact with each other in bad times.

[20:56] And I know in our location,

[20:59] we were without electricity for that same period of time, and then we had to wait for the repairs to the service entrance before we could hook anything back up again.

[21:10] But because we were kind of on the main circuit that served Safeway,

[21:17] we came back on before our neighbors did.

[21:20] So then our neighbors,

[21:23] we had canvassed the neighborhood and the ones who didn't have the generator and wanted to save,

[21:30] you know, the freezer full of fish that ran an extension cord all the way down the lane to our place and plugged in. So it's kind of like,

[21:41] know your neighbors,

[21:43] know what you need to do to maintain that warmth.

[21:48] You know, having a fireplace,

[21:50] having wood,

[21:52] not having to do like some of the folks out in the more rural areas and start to burn furniture in order to stay warm,

[22:06] having your camp stove and that sort of thing.

[22:10] And the aftermath of finding out,

[22:17] once you had communication,

[22:20] where is the vulnerable population as you do outreach for recovery?

[22:26] And that's. That's kind of the rest of the story is about that recovery.

[22:33] Jen: Absolutely. Recovery is so often overlooked. And I appreciate what he'd said about the needs and the resources there.

[22:40] Jan: So one other thought on that too is because cities always get the electricity back first,

[22:48] but when you live at the end of the road, at the end of rounds me that you're. You're the last on there.

[22:54] So, you know, just to. To be cognizant of again, who is vulnerable around there and whatever like that, that they are not getting it as soon as other people maybe.

[23:04] Jen: Oh, absolutely.

[23:06] Sheila roley: This is to have a way to communicate.

[23:12] And not that everybody in Astoria needs to become a ham radio operator, but one of the really positive things about the storm was that the Seaside High School Ham Radio Kids Club went to the emergency management center and they manned that for 24 hours a day with all these kids.

[23:34] But, you know, just encouraging you know other people to think about how else could you communicate or putting a flyer out in your neighborhood saying,

[23:44] who in the neighborhood's it?

[23:46] A ham operator? And, and I don't know a lot about, you know, different communication systems, but that's one that is a direct line. There's no, there's no wires involved. It's just a through the air signal.

[23:59] And,

[24:00] and that really also worked for me when,

[24:04] when I was trying to, you know, contact where my family was. And so,

[24:09] but anyway, that's that and, and that's again, not. I'm sure there's other resources, but no,

[24:15] Jen: that's a great one.

[24:16] Sheila roley: And I, you know, but cell phone towers still, they still need something they're going to blow over or they could blow over.

[24:21] Jen: Yep.

[24:22] Cell towers are very vulnerable during storms. I appreciate you mentioned communication because that's something a lot of times people forget. Oh, how will I reach my family members to enact our safety plan?

[24:33] I appreciate that. That's excellent.

[24:35] Sande: Yeah.

[24:35] Sheila roley: And at the time during the storm,

[24:37] my daughter was about to go into labor and you know, and it turned out to be kind of a false alarm and it was another week before there was a baby involved.

[24:47] But no, what do you do?

[24:49] Jan: Sounded like a job for Dr. Carolyn.

[24:51] Carolyn: No, I didn't burp babies in an

[24:56] Sheila roley: emergency in this middle of a storm.

[24:59] Speaker E: And I think too, Jen, in today's Technology There are GMRs, radios and pods that neighborhoods can put together and talking to each other without all that training that goes into a HAM license.

[25:20] And just in the past month or so I've been talking with folks who,

[25:27] you know, have forgotten more than I ever Learned about communication,

[25:32] GMRs or HAM that there are technologies out there to learn about and to put into play in neighborhoods so that families can communicate with each other and neighborhoods can. And point to point communication can happen.

[25:53] Also in encouraging families to prepare is take the opportunity to participate in exercises or tabletop exercises or outreach where in either your faith based community or community program or your grange or schools to really start to learn how to prepare.

[26:19] And there are many programs available.

[26:23] Prepare in a year, one month at a time or the be two weeks ready that's been rolled out by the office of emergency management and the grab and go bag.

[26:37] What do I need,

[26:39] what's essential?

[26:41] And then how do I record all the important information that I will never remember if something is damaged or I have to evacuate?

[26:53] Do you have a source of retaining that important information as far as medical information, insurance information,

[27:02] all of that.

[27:04] Then after the disaster, you're called upon to remember who you are,

[27:10] what you had,

[27:12] what you didn't have.

[27:14] You know, did you take a walk through with your cell phone camera or a camera?

[27:21] Of all the objects in your home,

[27:25] do you know what to report to an insurance company?

[27:30] Do you have the right kind of insurance for the disasters that strike us here on the coast?

[27:39] So those preparations,

[27:41] it's more than a gallon of water a day for every family member.

[27:47] And it's more than, you know,

[27:49] those funny little blocks of food that lasts for 25 years.

[27:58] But true, all of that.

[27:59] Jen: That's true. And it's a family affair, too. You can get kids involved around the house with some of those drills,

[28:07] partners,

[28:08] husbands, wives. I know with my partner, every month we do like a radio check. We do use GMRS because it's more accessible for us than ham radio. But some of these things can be fun.

[28:20] Right. And empowering rather than overwhelming. It can be gamified.

[28:25] It can be gamified. It can be empowering rather than like, gosh, this sounds, this sounds terrible. It's a great way to get your friends and family involved.

[28:33] Speaker E: When you have a grab and go bucket box or backpack,

[28:40] my theory is you always have to have a fun bucket with you.

[28:45] Yes.

[28:46] So that you have games and you have things for all members of your family because pretty soon it gets a little boring.

[28:58] Sheila roley: You can only play fish so long.

[29:00] Speaker E: Yes.

[29:01] Sande: I was just going to say that same thing, that, you know, I think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and most of us probably have the food, shelter and water kinds of things ready to go, but it's the other things.

[29:13] And you know, don't get rid of those board games because they might come in handy.

[29:18] And, you know, people can't use their,

[29:20] their phones for their games. You know, then what are you going to do? So.

[29:25] So yeah, I think about that. I think about the mental health piece, you know, keeping people busy, giving them purpose,

[29:31] making sure that,

[29:32] that I think, I think I Learned lessons in 2007 with my kids still with us when, during the pandemic, when one came back to live with us.

[29:40] During that first six months when we were all shut down,

[29:44] I learned to structure the day for my family. So we made a plan of what was happening at certain times and what jobs needed to be done.

[29:55] I'm reading also the Shackleton book, Endurance now, and that's exactly what Shackleton did with his men on the ice floes there. Gave him jobs to do every day so they didn't get at each other.

[30:07] So anyway, yeah, Recreation is an important piece of that.

[30:12] Jen: Well said. I thought about that to mind as well. When you think about rural families preparing themselves for disaster.

[30:22] Jan: Yeah, that sounds about right. You know, knowing where and if you don't.

[30:28] Sande: Yeah.

[30:28] Jan: The lack of communication, I mean,

[30:31] that could be.

[30:32] If there's trees down the road, the buses aren't getting through all of that. Yeah. Thinking through that.

[30:41] Thanks again, Jen munson, Sandy Brown, Dr. Carolyn Merton,

[30:45] Charlene Larson and Sheila Rowley for sharing your experiences and advice.

[30:50] Hey everybody, save the date October 22nd from 5:30 to 7:30.

[30:57] This will be a super fun event for the whole family.

[31:00] There'll be a costume contest, zombie makeup station. Who doesn't want to do that?

[31:06] Free taco dinner and lots of learning about disaster resiliency. Fun for the whole family.

[31:13] But most importantly, you'll build skills around emergency management to keep your most important people in your life safe.

[31:22] Sande: Yep.

[31:23] Jan: Ready Fair Thursday, October 22nd at Jewel School. See you there.

[31:28] There'll be links in the show notes.

[31:30] Thanks for listening and be sure to share this episode with other people that you know will be impacted, which is pretty much everybody right till.