6/18/15 7:00 pm Office of Emergency Management Card Street Fire Update

With the partial lifting of the Sterling evacuation earlier this afternoon, over 150 homeowners can return to the area.  Thank you all for your patience!

We’d like to shout out to the Kenai Peninsula Borough resources that are currently working on the fire.  We are fortunate to have these highly qualified individuals and equipment available here: 

Central Emergency Services:

• Two Brush Engines
• One Water Tender

 Nikiski Fire Department

• Two Brush Trucks with 3 firefighters on each truck for a total of 6.
• One tender/pumper

Kachemak Emergency Services:

• One -2000 gallon water tender
• One –Wildland Engine
• One -Structure Engine
• Total of seven personnel.

If you are planning to travel to the Kenai Peninsula, please check www.511.alaska.gov  before traveling for current road conditions and be on the lookout for smoke and firefighting equipment. 

When disaster strikes, every little bit helps. To make the most of your contributions, consider these tips for donating and volunteering responsibly:

• Cash is the most efficient method of donating – Cash offers voluntary agencies the most flexibility in obtaining the most-needed resources and pumps money into the local economy to help businesses recover. Remember, unsolicited donated goods such as used clothing, miscellaneous household items, and mixed or perishable foodstuffs require helping agencies to redirect valuable resources away from providing services to sort, package, transport, warehouse, and distribute items that may not meet the needs of disaster survivors.
• Donate through a trusted organization – At the national level, many voluntary-, faith- and community-based organizations are active in disasters, and are trusted ways to donate to disaster survivors.
• Affiliate with existing non-profit organizations before coming to the disaster area. Immediately following a disaster, a community can become easily overwhelmed by the amount of generous people who want to help. Contacting and affiliating with an established organization will help to ensure that you are appropriately trained to respond in the most effective way.
• Be safe. Do not self deploy until a need has been identified and the local community impacted has requested support. Wait until it is safe to travel to volunteer sites and opportunities have been identified. Once assigned a position, make sure you have been given an assignment and are wearing proper safety gear for the task.
• Be patient. Recovery lasts a lot longer than the media attention. There will be volunteer needs for many months, often years, after the disaster - especially when the community enters the long-term recovery period.

Updates are regularly posted here and on the Borough Facebook Page

Register your mobile phone to receive emergency notifications through “Rapid Notify.”  Visit www.kpb.us

OEM call center information, please call 907-714-2495.