Be Prepared!

Welcome to the 625th Meeting of the Rotary Club of Dixie Sunrise!

Today’s meeting was memorable, educational and entertaining with former club member and guest speaker Bob Flowers, Director of Public Safety, City of Ivins. Flowers provided an overview of what we need to do to be prepared for any type of disaster and gave some background experiences to his previously held positions for our state and federal governmental agencies. He explained his current position with the City of Ivins is the very best job he has ever had. But the most “fun” job was with Homeland Security during the Olympics in Salt Lake City. Bob described how FEMA works (or not) and how each of us should take the initiative to be prepared and care for ourselves and families first and not depend on the federal government to assist, especially during the early, more crucial hours following a disaster, such as flood, earthquake or hurricane.

According to Flowers, FEMA is really more of a “money management agency” that distributes the funding for emergency supplies and services rather than actually supplying emergency items such as food, water and shelter. During Katrina there were obvious and blatant misunderstandings and poor communications between FEMA and New Orleans and other affected cities. Unable to create and maintain open communications during a disaster such as Katrina led to massive suffering and irrevocable negative public opinion of FEMA that hopefully will change over time.


--John Johnson