Utah, neighboring states get new emergency preparedness center

SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is funding a new emergency preparedness center led by a University of Utah professor. 

The Rocky Mountains and Great Plains Center for Emergency Public Health will help Utahns and neighboring states ramp up preparation for extreme weather events and public health crises. 

It doesn’t have a brick and mortar building. Center Director Dr. Kimberley Shoaf said instead, it’s an academic center designed to help us be ready when disaster strikes. 

“As much as we’d like to, we can’t control Mother Nature,” Shoaf said. 

Natural disasters like Hurricane Helene show the devastation many communities are left with after extreme weather rolls through.

‘As resilient as possible’ 

“We need to be able to respond and do the things that we can to make ourselves as resilient as possible,” Shoaf said. 

The new emergency preparedness center she leads with the University of Utah’s Division of Public Health is designed to help with that. 

“They funded 10 centers across the country, one in each of the regions, to work with state and local health departments and tribal health departments to help them be ready to respond to public health emergencies,” Shoaf said. 

The Rocky Mountains and Great Plains Center includes Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. 

“Congress has reallocated funding to ensure that each health department across the country have access to one of these centers,” Shoaf said. 

Her team, in partnership with the University of Colorado’s School of Public Health, has been working with those health departments for the last year. 

“Wildfires was what was their top priority, flooding was actually another one in some of the areas,” Shoaf said. 

They’re also concerned about severe winter weather. 

“When something happens during the winter, how do we get people to respond? How do we get people from here to there? What do we do about sheltering?” 

Prepared for earthquakes

Included in Shoaf’s list of priorities is earthquake readiness. 

“I currently have a research project looking at the earthquake in Turkey from a year and a half ago, and trying to get a better idea of exactly how people get injured,” she said. “We have some data about that we’ve done in the past, but really looking at within a specific building with a specific type of damage, what kind of injuries would we expect to see?” 

Dr. Shoaf’s team helps train members of public health agencies for emergency response. She said public health is a field where turnover is high. 

“There’s always there’s a constant need for training, and to keep them up to date on how do they work with their partners, how do they work with emergency management, how do they work with the fire department,” she said. 

It’s part of a national effort to have a coordinated response to disasters when they happen. Part of that is ensuring rural and tribal communities are included. 

“We have an advisory council that has worked with us from tribal communities across the region, and so we’ve got those relationships there,” Shoaf said. 

Nearly $1 million of the $5 million worth of funding the center has over the next five years will be allocated toward working with tribal communities. 

She said they’re working on sending out messaging and alerts to help us prepare for what mother nature could bring our way. 

“It certainly gives me a sense of hope that we’re turning the corner on recognizing the need to do this sort of thing,” Shoaf said.