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Emergency Management-SRPMIC

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Office of the Emergency Manager

SRPMIC COOP

Continuity of Operations Planning System

Thank you for visiting the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) Emergency Management site!

It is important that our Community members know that the SRPMIC Government is working very hard to ensure that our Community is prepared for any type of disaster that may impact the safety or quality of life for our members. Staff in all areas of Government are involved in this effort to prevent, plan, respond, and recover from a disaster or major event in our Community.

One of the most critical components for an effective disaster plan is having Community Members that are educated and prepared on what to do when disaster strikes.

We hope that you will use this website to not only educate yourself on what our Community staff is doing in the area of emergency preparedness, but perhaps more importantly, what you and your family can do to prepare for a disaster before it strikes. Please feel free to contact the Emergency Management if you have additional questions about our Community or your family’s emergency preparedness needs.

For additional questions, you can contact Charles Kmet, Emergency Manager, at (480) 362-7927.

When Disaster Strikes … Are you prepared?

The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s Emergency Management program began in 2007 to improve individual readiness for disasters or major events affecting the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Disasters can have a negative impact on the Community members, our land, and our quality of life. Therefore, the Division of Emergency Management remains committed to developing and enhancing viable programs to support resiliency.

The Emergency Management Division organizationally falls under the Salt River Fire Department but also has an indirect line of reporting authority to the Community Managers office. The Division comprises of Emergency Management, Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Training & Exercise where staff strive to align program efforts to minimize impacts to risks to the residents, employees and visitors to the Community as well as to its Infrastructure.

Since the inception of the program, the Emergency Management Division takes an all-hazard approach and prides itself in ensuring that the Community and its members are more resilient in responding to and recovering from disasters.

With a continual need to share resources and information, a collaborative approach to sharing information from all stakeholders involved has been our methodology to ensure that relevant information is shared between partners. The following sites provide information that individuals, families and others stakeholders can utilize in each cycle of Emergency Management from prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

Partner Site Information:

Emergency Shelter in Place … Do you know how?

Most people know that there is a chance that they may be asked to evacuate if there is an emergency such as a chemical spill in their area. When evacuating, most people would go to a shelter that would be set up by emergency workers, or some would prefer to go to a friend or relative’s house until it is safe to return. What if the emergency instructions were not to evacuate, but to “shelter in place”. Do you know what this means? Would you know what to do to protect yourself and your family? If the answer is “no”, you are not alone. Most people are very confused as to what “shelter in place” really means.

Sheltering in place simply means that you stay in your residents, or current location such as work, and take some general precautions such as:

  • Close and lock all windows and exterior doors.
  • If you are told there is danger of explosion, close the window shades, blinds, or curtains.
  • Turn off all fans, heating and air conditioning systems.
  • Close the fireplace damper.
  • Get your family disaster supplies kit and make sure the radio is working.
  • Go to an interior room without windows that’s above ground level.
  • In the case of a chemical threat, an above-ground location is preferable because some chemicals are heavier than air, and may seep into basements even if the windows are closed.
  • Bring your pets with you, and be sure to bring additional food and water supplies for them.
  • It is ideal to have a hard-wired telephone in the room you select. Call your emergency contact and have the phone available if you need to report a life-threatening condition. Cellular telephone equipment may be overwhelmed or damaged during an emergency.
  • Use duct tape and plastic sheeting (heavier than food wrap) to seal all cracks around the door and any vents into the room.
  • Keep listening to your radio, television, telephone until you are told all is safe or you are told to evacuate. Local officials may call for evacuation in specific areas at greatest risk in your community.

So remember, evacuating is not the only choice in a disaster or hazardous situation. Sometimes the safest thing for you and your family is to shelter in place, and now you know how to do this.

Listing Information For Emergencies (LIFE)

General Information and Procedues for the LIFE Program

Listing Information for Emergencies (LIFE) is a voluntary program to assist Police, Fire, Emergency Medical Services, and other Community Staff to identify a Community residence where a special needs individual, or someone that may need special assistance during emergencies resides. Under this program, government personnel will be authorized by the individual, or the parent/guardian if the individual is a minor or incapacitated, and homeowner to conduct a welfare check on the person listed on the consent form. The homeowner understands that the welfare check of the special needs individual will occur only when a large scale emergency impacts the Community or there is a 911 call to this residence. This welfare check will only be conducted if Community resources allow for it. Sometimes during large scale emergencies resources are committed to immediate life safety issues and staff may not be available to conduct these checks immediately.

It is critical that families do not rely on this welfare check under the LIFE Program and that they have an individual and family plan in place as the primary source of taking care of special needs family members during emergencies. They should plan on the LIFE Program being a back-up system and not the primary system for meeting the needs of people with special needs.

By completing and signing this form, the homeowner is voluntarily consenting to this service. The actual homeowner must sign the voluntary consent form in addition to the parent or guardian. The information contained on this form is not covered under health information privacy laws known as the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The information requested on the voluntary consent form referring to the special needs individual will be completed by a person authorized to release this information. To assist the responding emergency services personnel, please list relevant information such as whether the person uses a wheelchair, is a dialysis patient, is blind or hearing impaired, can the individual communicate or is there difficulty or inability to communicate with others. If the person is a special needs child, give a brief description of any conditions you feel will help responders, such as whether the child is autistic or if there are any other conditions that may hinder communication.

The information contained on this form may be entered into the Police/Fire Computer Aided Dispatch (“CAD”) system. An alert will activate on the address listed when a call for assistance is received notifying the dispatcher that a special needs individual resides at the address. This information will be relayed to the responding Police, Fire or Emergency Medical personnel.

This information may also be entered into a map or database to help public safety and government staff identify where these homes are for larger scale emergencies or natural disasters.

The LIFE Program service is voluntary and at the consent of the homeowner. This consent will be in-force in the absence of the homeowner. It is requested that all family members be informed that this service was voluntarily consented to by the homeowner, and to fully cooperate with emergency services personnel upon arrival. This consent will be in place until removed by the homeowner. Government staff will try to contact residence annually to update information.

The SRPMIC Emergency Manager will be the primary person for managing the LIFE Program. The Emergency Manager should work with Community resources to educate the Community about this program to get participation. This person will also be responsible for getting the information to other departments that may want to enter the data into the dispatch or mapping systems for use during emergencies. Although the primary responsibility for keeping data up to date is the homeowner’s, the Emergency Manager should try to at least annually make contact with registered LIFE Program participants to update data.

For additional information you can contact Charles Kmet, the SRPMIC Emergency Manager, at 480 362-7927.

Emergency Messages Delivered to Your Phone

You pick up your telephone at home and it is obviously one of those recorded messages that we all get, usually advertising something … or is it? It could actually be a recorded emergency message that is being sent to your home to advise you and your family of a hazardous situation.

Our Community is part of the Community Emergency Notification System, known as CENS. CENS is a phone notification system that can deliver emergency information to thousands of home phones in a matter of minutes. If there was a large scale emergency in our Community, this would be one of the tools that our Public Safety personnel would use to notify our Community Members, Community Staff, and business in our Community about the event. The recorded message would advise you of the event and give you some general instructions as to what to do. For example if they wanted you to evacuate the area, they would state this and give a location of where you could go for assistance. In some situations, it is best to stay in your home. Emergency workers call this shelter in place. This CENS system could notify you to shelter in place and give brief instructions on how to do this.

This system can only be used for a true emergency and the use of it is regulated and monitored. There is also a significant cost to use the system, which also controls this system from being improperly used. Some additional facts about CENS are as follows:

  • It will not leave a message on your cell phone
  • If you have caller ID it will come up “Priority Alert” or “Alert Call”
  • It is designed to leave a message on an answering machine
  • It will call back automatically if it gets a busy signal
  • This system is only available to the Maricopa County region

So, the next time you pick up the phone and are tempted to hang up because you think that it is just a recorded advertisement, think again. It could be an emergency message from emergency workers trying to deliver important information to you in an effort to keep you and your family safe.

For additional questions on this system, you can contact Cliff Puckett, the Community’s Emergency Manager, at (480) 362-7927.

Hazard Mitigation Plan

Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community officially adopted the Maricopa County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan through Council Resolution on December 8th, 2021. mitigation planning is the process used to identify risks and vulnerabilities associated with natural disasters and to develop long-term strategies for protecting people and property in future hazard events. The process results in a mitigation plan that offers a strategy for breaking the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage and a framework for developing feasible and cost-effective mitigation projects.  Under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-390), local and tribal governments are required to develop and maintain a FEMA approved hazard mitigation plan as a condition of eligibility for receiving certain non-emergency federal hazard mitigation grants.

A multi-jurisdictional planning team comprised of representatives from the county, city, town and tribes within Maricopa County will be meeting regularly to review, revise and update the current hazard mitigation plan, with specific attention to:

  • Natural hazards that may impact or have impacted the community
  • Profiles of the most relevant hazards
  • Vulnerability assessment to the identified hazards
  • Goals and objectives for hazard risk reduction/elimination
  • Mitigation actions/projects to achieve the stated goals and objectives
  • Plan maintenance strategy for the next 5-year cycle

For plan access, please visit Hazard Mitigation | Maricopa County, AZ.

Salt River – Community Emergency Response Team (SR-CERT)

The SR-CERT program is currently housed within the Salt River Fire Department in partnership with Emergency Management. Membership is open to all volunteers, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) employees, and Enterprise employees who are 18 years of age or older. SR-CERT courses teach volunteers about disaster preparedness; fire suppression; light medical operations; light search and rescue; and psychology and team organization.

For more information on the SR-CERT and how to get involved in disaster volunteer opportunities contact SRPMIC Emergency Management at Emergency.Management@srpmic-nsn.gov or call 480-362-7929.