Mansfield Town Hall (Amar Batra/Daily Campus)
The Town of Mansfield Emergency Preparedness Day, organized to inform Mansfield residents of proper safety protocol during an emergency situation, has been canceled. The event was previously scheduled to take place on Saturday, Sept. 9, at the Mansfield Community Center.
The Youth Services Supervisor for Mansfield, Katherine J. Bell, said in an email that the annual event was canceled due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts with some of the groups expected to participate. Certain agencies that had been scheduled to take part in the event, such as the Red Cross, needed to focus their resources on Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, the email said.
Bell also said that, although the event has not been rescheduled, community members are encouraged to visit the Mansfield Fire Department and learn more about emergency preparedness at the Celebrate Mansfield Festival scheduled for Sept. 17.
According to Bell, in past years, the Emergency Preparedness Day has included presentations from various community-based emergency services, such as representatives from the local fire and police stations.
“These organizations come out to share information with families of all ages about ways to be best prepared in the event of an emergency,” Bell’s email said.
According to Bell, the purpose of this event was to increase the residents’ awareness of emergency safety protocols, by providing information about resources and shelter.
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“These organizations come out to share information with families of all ages about ways to be best prepared in the event of an emergency”
Bell said in the email that some of these protocols would include “having enough resources for members of their household…to shelter in place if needed while emergency crews work to make the community safe and passable.”
According to Bell, Mansfield residents should consider signing up for alerts from systems like CodeRED, which recognize that certain mediums of communication may be disrupted during an emergency situation, and send notifications using multi-modal communication methods including telephone calls, text messages, emails and social media.
Bell said that Mansfield residents can sign up for this service to receive emergency notifications and disaster recovery information during an active emergency by creating a CodeRED account using the following link: http://www.mansfieldct.gov/codered.
Annie Stachura is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at annie.stachura@uconn.edu