By Skyler Bell
Derek Jensen, spokesman for Utah?s Department of Public Safety, has been at Camp Williams every day since 583 refugees from Hurricane Katrina first began to arrive in Utah.
?It has been one of those once in a lifetime experiences,? Jensen said. ?We have about 115 left at Camp Williams now, but that?s a pretty fluid number. The first thing to keep in mind is that they?re not in a prison camp. They can come and go as they please? it?s not like chain them to their bed at night.?
The Department of Public Safety has set October 1 as a flexible target date to have the rest of the refugees on their way to becoming established again after many of them lost everything they owned by the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.
?We?re not going to kick them out and lock the gates or anything? it?s just a target date,? Jensen said. ?Most of them are either going to other states to be with family or friends they have there and others are actually going to stay here in Utah.?
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as other agencies and charities, has set up programs to help Katrina victims get back on their feet. Each victim can apply to have 12 months of housing covered by FEMA, and the Red Cross and Salvation Army are helping to restore both necessities and niceties to those left suffering in Katrina?s aftermath.
September is National Safety Awareness Month and the Utah Department of Public Safety listed a 12-step preparedness program on their Web site, emergencymanagement.utah.gov.
?There are things you can do to be prepared and the better prepared you are the less reason you have to fear,? Jensen said. ?If you look at it as a combined effort, government agencies try and be prepared in case there is a disaster, but citizens can do the same. If both parties of that team are as prepared as they can be, it makes response and recovery go a lot smoother. If you are prepared it makes it easier for you to help others around you and that just helps everybody.?
The Daily Universe was able to sit down and speak with Jensen, who had a lot to say about Katrina?s victims and what Utahans can do to be prepared.
Q.What is the daily routine of an average Katrina refugee in Utah?
A. ?They are currently housed in the barracks at Camp Williams. They have a family barracks, a male barracks and a female barracks. There are a variety of services available on the base. There are three meals a day in the mess hall, and they?ve brought in a number of activities for the evacuees; they?ve taken them to snowbird, trips to the zoo, things like that. They have also set-up activities during the day for school age children. They have a beauty salon that?s set up each Wednesday and a barbershop that runs on Sundays. A lot of the other services out there are services to help them either get to where they need to be out of state or to start to establish their lives here in Utah. UTA has basically set up a daily bus service to help them get out to the rest of the community if they need to get somewhere. There?s a community center where they can go in and check e-mail, get on the Internet, get books, watch TV and there?s childcare on the base. Basically it?s a mini city that?s been set up out at camp Williams.
Q. How long does it look like Utah will be their home? What can we do to make it more hospitable?
A. ?If you?re aware of individuals in the community that are now going to make Utah home, just welcome them and be cognizant that this is probably a new culture and a new environment. I think its just being aware of those things. Of course there?s always monetary help and charities, but the one thing we probably want to discourage, and this surprises a lot of people, is that often times people want to donate things and a lot of the time we just don?t have the capacity to sort and store the things that people end-up not needing. We?ve had a lot of great volunteer groups (red cross, salvation ARMY, etc) and they?re the ones who need to be contacted as far as that goes.
Q. What is the most amazing outreach story you have seen over the last three weeks with your involvement with Katrina?
A. ?In Pleasant Grove this neighborhood basically got a house ready for this family to move into. And there?s actually an evacuee couple that met in Louisiana while they were evacuating and now they?re getting married on Friday. Numerous local businesses have been great about donating services and such and it?s just really been great.
Q. How have the recent events in the Gulf changed The Department of Public Safety?s outlook on Utah?s preparedness for a similar disaster?
A. ?That?s a question we?ve been asked a lot lately and it?s a good question. We prepare and try and prepare for disasters on a regular basis so as far as doing that nothing has really changed, but certainly it has brought home the reality that this could happen anywhere and there are potential hazards here in Utah we need to be ready for?not that we weren?t ready before, but we just all need to make sure we are ready for this. It goes all the way from the government down to the individual level.
Q. What would happen in the 1st five hours if a disaster hit at this moment?
A. ?We would basically put our plan into place that we?ve had for several years now. Disasters start at the local level. It starts in a city or a town and goes from there, so you?d have your local responders who?d be the first to respond to whatever happened. Then, if it were a big enough disaster, it would likely require assistance from county agencies and multiple other agencies including the state, so we?d activate our emergency plan to start helping with that response. It would bring to bear a variety of state agencies from our department to U-Dot to the Department of Health, and there are multiple agencies who would work together to respond to a large scale disaster. Alerts would also be sent out through the emergency alert system.
Q. What do citizen?s need to do to prepare? What about poor students, many who are packed into cramped apartments?
A. ?I remember those college days with the beds up on cinder blocks?you can store a lot under those! There are things you can do like having some basic food supplies and some basic first aid supplies?food, clothing, a pair of sturdy shoes and a few blankets?and a lot of that you can fit in the trunk of your car and just be ready to get out of town. Always have at least half of a tank of gas in your car. You don?t necessarily need a big storage area to be prepared.?
Q. How does having a preparation oriented Mormon base within the state affect our emergency preparedness?
A. ?It helps a lot. The biggest challenge when you talk about being prepared is apathy among the general public. People don?t tend to pay attention to ?be prepared,? but the fact that the church culture kind of sets the tone for that puts Utah well head of other states.?
Q. How does Katrina affect Utah County and specifically BYU students?
A. ?I don?t know if it will be noticeable day to day, other than you might be getting some new neighbors and obviously there are some students from that area so it directly affects them, but generally I think it?s just been a good wake-up call to be prepared and gotten people in that mind set.
Q. If President Bush does not raise taxes to fund the relief efforts, how will it be paid for? How does that affect Utahans between the ages of 18-28?
A. ?Geez, when we start talking about taxes that?s kind of out of my realm, but speaking generally it will have an impact on Utah just through other grant programs?you know, we receive several million dollars each year from federal grants that deal with a variety of things like Homeland Security, preparedness, Pell Grants, and so on. There may be some programs that are cut to help fund Katrina.?