The Hub for Community Innovation was the site for Augusta Emergency Management Agency’s 2023 Public Safety Family Fun Day, Saturday morning.
Several organizations and city agencies, including the fire department, the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office Hazardous Device Unit (or Bomb Squad), Central EMS and American Red Cross, set up vendor booths outside the Boys & Girls Club facility to educate attendees on preparedness, resiliency and safety.
“It’s so great that all these city agencies and different organizations can come out so the community can learn more about what they do,” said EMA specialist Emily Prunty, who coordinated this year’s Family Fun Day.
Prunty attributes the strong response from local agencies to her requests to participate to “lots of hours” of cultivating rapport among the organizations.
“We have good relationships with everyone here,” she said. “I just sent out an invite that said that your participation assists us in our goal. So, they responded and they had the same goal we had.”
The Fire Department offered many of the informative attractions and the safety fair included car safety tips and free car seat installations, demonstrations at the fire engine, and tours of the EMA Command Center vehicle.
Lt. John Payne, an inspector with the Augusta Fire Department, manned the inflatable safety house, in which attendees — kids and parents alike — were encouraged to take mini-tours and learn key home fire safety guidelines.
The safety house had three small rooms to represent common house areas — a kitchen, a living room and a bedroom, decorated with safety strategies.
“This is where we tell the kids to learn to stay low,” said Payne in the kitchen area of the safety house, noting that most fire fatalities are due to smoke inhalation rather than burns. “The average person, when that happens, is usually 10 or 12 feet from the door.”
Among Payne’s tried-and-true fire safety tips were to keep fire extinguishers in kitchen areas, keep smoke alarms 10 feet away from stoves (to avoid setting it off during cooking, and desensitizing the household from the alarm), and to not splash water on a grease fire.
Augusta EMA was also sure to let attending citizens know about Everbridge, Augusta’s digital emergency notification system. Subscribers can receive direct communication from the EMA about severe weather, boil water advisories, disasters or other emergencies, to their mobile device.
The program can even tailor the information it dispenses to individual subscribers, so that they receive notices relevant to their part of the county, explains EMA Deputy Director Andrew Jensen.
“It’s one of those things where, if you opt in, you get quicker, higher fidelity information than you’re going to get than if you try and pass it out through media channels,” Jensen said. “We’ve had a lot of success today in getting people to sign up for it.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
