{"id":15452,"date":"2025-11-29T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/flood-response-highlights-la-plata-countys-emergency-preparedness\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:48:09","slug":"flood-response-highlights-la-plata-countys-emergency-preparedness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/flood-response-highlights-la-plata-countys-emergency-preparedness\/","title":{"rendered":"Flood response highlights La Plata County\u2019s emergency preparedness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"More
More than a month after floods swept through La Plata County and triggered an emergency response in the Vallecito area, county officials say the operation went largely as planned and left little room for improvement. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Major flooding is rare in La Plata County, a region marked by a dry, drought-prone climate. But when tropical rainstorms swept across Southwest Colorado in mid-October, emergency officials say the county\u2019s preparation and training paid off.<\/p>\n

Officials credit the effective response to a mix of preparedness, new technology and lessons learned from both annual drills and a busy summer fire season.<\/p>\n

In the days leading up to the storm, the weather forecast provided two to three days of advance warning. Sand and sandbags were pre-positioned in flood-prone communities, and Road and Bridge crews delivered additional loads for residents to use.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat preparedness, seeing it coming and taking preventive actions up front \u2013 that worked really well,\u201d said La Plata County Emergency Management Director Rob Farino. Those efforts helped protect key infrastructure, including at least one of Bayfield\u2019s three bridges, he said.<\/p>\n

By the time it became clear the flooding would create significant impacts, the Emergency Operations Center and the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District were already in daily contact with the National Weather Service and operating on high alert.<\/p>\n

Much of the response worked smoothly because county departments and partner agencies trained for exactly this, Farino said. A yearly evacuation drill, along with multiple real-world activations during fire season, meant staff already knew their roles and processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe repetition builds competence and confidence, but we\u2019d rather not have to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Interdepartmental coordination, like assigning incident numbers to track purchases and time cards, was well practiced, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we have a real event, it\u2019s like a well-oiled machine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Once the rain arrived, the EOC activated and shifted immediately into information-gathering mode. A county drone flew over affected areas throughout the weekend, providing a live video feed into the Emergency Response Center \u2013 a new capability Farino called invaluable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really cool to have a video of exactly what was going on \u2013 where the flooding was, where it was breaking through and the homes that were threatened,\u201d he said. \u201cWe even saw the excavator in the channel trying to repair levees while it was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

That real-time view, combined with Zoom access for staff who couldn\u2019t be physically present, allowed responders to map evacuation zones, send Code Red alerts and track reports in real time. Road and Bridge staff, for example, were able to remain on scene monitoring threatened bridges while simultaneously briefing the EOC, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that first hour, we\u2019re all hungry for information,\u201d he said. \u201cBut everyone knows their workstation, they know what to do. Finance starts cutting a new incident number, public health knows where they fit in, Road and Bridge checks infrastructure. The system is in place, and the training pays off.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the county\u2019s Emergency Operations Plan \u2013 a living document updated after real events and annual drills \u2013 provided the framework, while staff experience supplied the muscle memory.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the floods, as the evacuated Vallecito residents returned to their homes, they were full of praise for the efforts of the fire district, the Sheriff\u2019s Office and the many county departments involved in the response effort.<\/p>\n

One critique however, was the communication to residents.<\/p>\n

David Kontje, who lives in one of the evacuated neighborhoods, said he would have liked to have received more detailed and frequent updates about what was going on.<\/p>\n

Many of his neighbors had to source information updates from social media, word-of-mouth and the local paper, Kontje said. Having more comprehensive information come out from a single source \u2013 in this case, La Plata County since it was handling the majority of the response, would have been beneficial.<\/p>\n

While Farino said he\u2019s heard similar feedback, he finds some of the critique to be a tad superfluous.<\/p>\n

He noted that residents vary widely in where \u2013 or whether \u2013 they receive local information. \u201cSome people say, \u2018I don\u2019t do Facebook.\u2019 Others don\u2019t subscribe to the Herald<\/em>. We don\u2019t have a local TV news station,\u201d he said. \u201cSo how can we best reach you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Farino said the county relies primarily on social media, its website and Code Red alerts. \u201cThat\u2019s one way we have people\u2019s attention,\u201d he said. But Code Red is an opt-in system, and residents who don\u2019t sign up or who avoid online platforms can be hard to reach. \u201cIf you\u2019re not signed up for Code Red, and you refuse to get on social media and you don\u2019t subscribe to the Herald<\/em> \u2013 how would you like us to communicate with you?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, he said the county takes the complaints seriously and encouraged all county residents to sign up for Code Red.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s where all of the information is sent from in emergencies, and will remain the county\u2019s primary form of rapid communication.<\/p>\n

jbowman@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officials credit planning, drills and new tech for swift action<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1152,971,1497,28,1745,994,1500],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-emergency-incident","tag-emergency-planning","tag-flood","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-officials","tag-trueanthem","tag-vallecito"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15452"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19665,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15452\/revisions\/19665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15452"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}