The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska stood up its own Tribal Emergency Operations Center in April.<\/p>\n
Now, it’s looking to the future and not just for tribal citizens in Juneau, but across the Southeast and beyond.<\/p>\n
“My job is to predict and plan for disasters. With the coronavirus, there’s obviously no predicting it. It’s here. It becomes a matter of planning the response,” said Corey Padrón, the emergency manager for Tlingit and Haida’s Office of Emergency Management, which houses the TEOC, in a phone interview. “We’re partnered up with over 20 Native communities around Southeast Alaska. What we have is a regional tribal ops center so we can offer assistance to all the tribal communities.”<\/p>\n
Formerly a first sergeant within the Village Public Safety Officer program, working in Ketchikan Padrón came onboard last month and is working with the rest of the TEOC to manage Tlingit and Haida’s response to the coronavirus, working to get PPE into the hands of outlying communities, creating logistical contingencies for an ongoing pandemic and preparing outlying communities for emergency breakdowns in shipping.<\/p>\n
[Watch: Troopers make announcement about Sitka cold case]<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n “What we did was identify starter kits for our communities,” said Jason Wilson, TEOC incident commander, in a phone interview. “That starts with a storage unit, like a Conex. We’re gathering about a three-month supply of masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, thermometers, as well as things like dried food and some other areas.”<\/p>\n The Conex boxes, destined for more than 20 communities, will begin to go out shortly, Padrón said. The first ones are bound for Saxman, Angoon and Kake, Wilson said. The TEOC is accounting for nearly 35,000 tribal citizens, Wilson said.<\/p>\n “We’re trying to handle the current crisis of this pandemic as well as trying to look forward and anticipate the next crisis of this pandemic,” Padrón said. “This is a big part of that, is prestaging this equipment that we couldn’t get when things were hot and heavy and we couldn’t get stuff.”<\/p>\n