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PRESS RELEASE. From Senior Coastsiders.
Senior Coastsiders Emergency Preparedness Measures
Background
Senior Coastsiders provides services and programs to seniors on the coast and their families and caregivers. These include freshly prepared meals served in our dining room or home delivered, care management (information, assistance, resources, referrals), minor home repairs, classes, activities and special events, transportation and the loan of assistive devices.
In the same building as Senior Coastsiders is the Coastside Adult Day Health Center that provides adult day care to people whose physical or mental conditions call for extra care and attention.
We are located on the Coastside Senior Housing campus that has about 312 units that are operated by 3 different nonprofit housing organizations – Lesley Community Services, Mid Pen Housing and Mercy Housing.
Adjacent to our property is Seacrest School that has around 270 pupils.
So within a very concentrated area there may be over 600 people of different generations and capacities at any one time.
Seacrest school has a very well-developed emergency preparedness plan with the goal of safely uniting children with their parents.
The housing sites face a different challenge because many of the seniors who live there have limited physical and/or mental capacity and may no longer drive. In the event that a senior has no friends of family nearby who could help them evacuate in an emergency, Lesley Community Gardens have organized a buddy system pairing seniors in their facility with others who drive.
Senior Campus and Neighbors Emergency Preparedness Group
Prior to COVID representatives of each of the organizations described above met monthly to build relationships, get to know each other’s emergency designated spaces, and generally share emergency preparedness knowledge. We plan to resume these meetings in October 2021.
Several of this group have CERT trained staff members, including at least one staff member trained on how to use a HAM radio.
We all purchased the same Baofeng BF-F8HP radios and tuned them to the same station. Prior to COVID we were having monthly radio call-in checks to increase comfort with using the radios.
Senior Coastsiders and CADHC are going through the process of being certified as an official American Red Cross Center.
Resiliency Hub
We have recently received funding from the County to purchase air coolers and purifiers, air quality monitors, misting fans, and black out shades so that we can serve as a resiliency hub for the community. We already have portable generators with solar panels that we can use in the event of a power outage.
We keep in our facility enough food and water to feed 100 seniors for 3 days.
We have an MoU with the Pacifica Senior Center to provide meals to each other inthe event that either organization is unable to do so. Each group provides over 100 meals a day to seniors.
Senior Coastsiders provides education to participants in October as part of the Great Shake Out.
WE NEED VOLUNTEERS. IF YOU’RE INTERESTED LET US KNOW!
Contact information
Sandi Winter, Executive Director, Senior Coastsiders, 925 Main St, half Moon Bay, CA, 94019, 650-726-9056, [email protected]
Author: Coastside Buzz
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