The committee received updates from the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), the Anchorage Health Department, and the Anchorage Police Department on ongoing programs, facility improvements, and new technology contracts. No formal votes were taken, but several upcoming actions were outlined, including a behavioral health RFP, a food code ordinance, and a proposed Axon contract for police technology.
Update in line with the mayor's public safety and set and public health and safety strategy, including overall improvements and emerging threats. Three items for today are alert and warning updates. We've had a busy July our stakeholder review of the municipality of Anchorage Emergency Management Program, and then as well our inaugural August 2025 Emergency Management Awareness Month. So beginning with alert and warning, we're continuously monitoring and communicating risk to partners and the public in supportive responding teams. This is a very traditional role for emergency management. We communicate risk, protective actions aligned with subject matter experts because we know that statistically, if you give people timely and accurate information, they will take positive actions to protect themselves and others for life safety, property protection, and environmental safety. As I said, we've had a busy month this July, beginning in early July with high and very high wildfire danger. Through the 4th of July and Forest Fair, we worked to support Anchorage Fire Department, Girdwood Volunteer Fire Department, and the State of Alaska Division of Forestry, mostly through amplification of activities by response teams and prevention activities. Several behind the scenes messages, phone calls, and texts were made to make sure we were redundant and synchronous throughout that event. For this event series, we elected social media to work with the public primarily. In late July, we had two significant earthquakes resulting in tsunami warnings for Alaska. There is now a scientifically confirmed rare but real risk of tsunami in the municipality of Anchorage, which threatens a few low-lying areas near waterways and infrastructure. These two large earthquakes did not present a risk for the municipality of Anchorage. I say again, Anchorage was never in danger from these tsunamis. Subsequently, OEM worked to convey this to the community as needed through local, state, and federal partners at the state emergency operations center, Anchorage Weather Forecast Office, and the National Tsunami Warning Center within a broader warning system, including phone calls and texts as well internally. More specifically on July the 16th, a 7.3 earthquake at Sand Point triggered a tsunami warning for Homer and other Kenai Peninsula borough towns and neighboring jurisdictions. Since they were warned via wireless emergency alerts, some people in Anchorage received a wireless emergency alert because of communication tower overlaps. OEM worked publicly through social media and our RAVE text and email messaging system to our 37,104 opt-in users. This is our primary system for notification alert and warning, which also integrates with the national system. This is called IPAS, which stands for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. We encourage all municipality of Anchorage residents and visitors to register by texting the word Anchorage to the number 67283. On July 29th, there was an 8.8 earthquake on the Kemchatka Peninsula in Russia. This triggered a second tsunami warning for many countries across the Pacific and Western coastal states. The OEM was monitoring closely and communicated with the state of Alaska Emergency Operations Center. We were not in danger. Neighboring jurisdictions did not receive the wireless emergency alert this time. So subsequently, we did not receive any messages due to overlap that time. Both instances presented opportunities to communicate with partners and the public, so we were happy to participate. What does stakeholder improvement involvement look like? The project team includes local government, emergency services, subject matter experts, and community organizations, including the Anchorage Local Emergency Planning Committee, also known as the LEPC. It ensures a well-rounded whole community approach. The project will be carried out in phases through October 2025. And it concludes systematic updates to ensure progress. For the July kickoff on July 23rd, we focused on incident management planning, mostly looking at the comprehensive emergency operation plan. Five of the seven excerpts of this plan are brand new. Revisions include base plan revisions and a recovery annex revision. And then all new elements, including agricultural natural resources, critical infrastructure and key resources, food, water, and commodities distribution, and volunteer management. And lastly, just documenting procedures of our incident action planning process at the emergency operations center. August updates will move into the mission area of all hazard mitigation and prevention, risk and consequence analysis, mitigation project priorities, prevention process, and overall training program updates, exercise evaluation, and corrective action monitoring. Of course, as well, we are updating our ever-present public education and information management process and procedures. Last, we will share about the inaugural August 2025 Emergency Management Awareness Month. This planned event is sponsored by the International Association of Emergency Management. The purpose of the event is to recognize the emergency management profession for what it is and to tell our story. Compared to my public health and safety partners, this contemporary profession, as we know it is young and not yet 100 years old, as we mostly stem from the greatest generation post-World War II era of civil defense. Post-9-11, I began this work helping local emergency operations centers with responding and recovering from large storms and pulling ice and water coolers for teams supporting bomb squads and making signs for domestic security task forces. Back then we used to say emergency management was 95% preparation and 5% response. Times have changed to meet the needs and expectations of our community. We are now responding as emergency managers early and often. 15 years ago, Alaska had a disaster every 90 days. Now we track, now we are tracking a frequency at greater than once a month across the state of Alaska.