Introduction

Welcome to the City of Fort Collins Office of Emergency Management Website. The primary responsibilities of the OEM involve identifying methods for:

• Disaster planning and mitigation;
• Developing training and education programs;
• Providing efficient and timely emergency notification.

This website is designed to be a reliable resource for information about natural disasters like high winds, tornadoes, blizzards, flash floods, stream flooding, and hail, as well as man-made disasters such as fires. In general, people who have learned what to do to prepare for emergencies before they occur are much more likely to escape property loss, injury, or death during a disaster. Community safety through advance preparation is the goal of the Fort Collins OEM.

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More about our responsibilities

"Growing Toward Disaster Resistance"

Effective disaster mitigation requires many components. Our Mitigation Tree symbolizes what it takes and how Fort Collins can accomplish its goals as a 'Disaster Resistant' community.

Our tree has strong roots and a firm foundation from years of growth. Upward growth results from reaching toward the sky and into the future. Upward growth can only be successful when it is balanced by the deep, downward growth of strong roots. We reach down into the past for a strong support system based on experience. Like the tree, our programs are balanced, allowing for long term growth and success. In harsh times, we are flexible and adaptable. Each branch supports the others to provide greater strength.

We believe the "Fort Collins Mitigation Tree" and the programs we are proposing will grow with the community and spread their seeds throughout the nation.

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• Planning for disasters first involves identifying potentially dangerous situations that can affect our community, then establishing goals, policies and procedures for coping with such events when they occur. It is knowing what it takes to be prepared.

• Mitigation is the process of risk reduction through identifying those who live or work in high risk areas and, following this identification, designing systems that will eliminate or reduce the impact of a disastrous event.

• Training is directed primarily toward the emergency responder. It is a process of developing skills to deal with a wide range of disaster emergencies. Through training, emergency responders learn about incident types and can practice their response to a myriad of events that can affect the Fort Collins community.

• Education of the public is one of the areas upon which we are placing a great deal of emphasis. On this website we will be dealing with issues such as: When does an event become an emergency? What do we do in an emergency? Where do we go? Who do we call for help? How can we better prepare ourselves? We know that the proper response can save lives, so it is important to offer comprehensive education about the events most likely to happen in our area.

• Emergency Notification is possibly the most important, and most difficult aspect of emergency management. Due to our busy lifestyles, there is no one-best-way to reliably notify each member of the community of an imminent emergency. Currently the OEM utilizes a multi-level approach to emergency notification. Included are, a cable TV override that allows us to interrupt programming for emergency announcements, and cooperative ventures with local radio stations. For those with NOAA Weather Radio there is also the National Weather Service broadcast warning system.

  The OEM has expanded the number of notification systems in Fort Collins to mitigate future disasters. We have installed more stream and precipitation gages for flooding events, increased the weather forecasting data stream, expanded the television notification system, established 530 AM as a local emergency radio resource, and purchased an automatic phone dialing system. Go to the "Project Impact" page for further information on our projects.

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Past News Events

If you haven't gotten your copy of our Hail Safety Tips brochure, you can download it right here. For online information about hail, visit our Hail page.

Along those same lines, severe thunderstorms can mean flooding. Our floods page can help you plan a strategy for your loved ones. This is also the place to learn about the history of flooding in Fort Collins.

January 25, 2000
We have received some requests to make our Fort Collins Hazard Analysis available online. This document reports and analyzes our vulnerability to various natural and man-made hazards here in the Fort Collins community. It was part of the work we did at the beginning of Project Impact to qualify as a Disaster Resistant Community. You can review the Hazard Analysis on the Project Impact page.

November 18, 1999
Today we added a new page to our menu. For those who remember the Civil Defense movement during World War II, or if you just wonder how the field of Emergency Management has evolved in America, this page will help. Go to the Civil Defense page now.

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Current Weather in Fort Collins

Click on graphic for weather forecast and current conditions in Fort Collins.

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Conclusion

Thanks again for visiting the Fort Collins Office of Emergency Management on the Internet. We welcome any questions or comments you may have about the website or about emergency management.

Together we're better...and safer.

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