Marion County Emergency Management - The Science of Sandbagging - YouTube

Hi everyone. My name is kathy bolin i'm  the culture and engagement coordinator for  

marion county and i'm here today with our live  presentation of emergency management the science  

of sandbagging kathleen silva is here with us and  her team and kathleen is the emergency manager for  

marion county and she's going to walk us through  the demonstration how to fill sandbags properly  

the correct way and then we're also going  to do some question and answer so kathleen  

if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself  and having your team introduce themselves

thank you and good afternoon thank you for  watching today we're going to go ahead and  

again go through the process of sandbagging  and i'm going to do that with my team this  

is the first video that we are producing here  at emergency management to help our community  

get prepared for disasters or emergencies  that our community may face so i'm going  

to go ahead and let my team today go ahead and  introduce themselves and i thank you for watching  

hi i'm commissioner danielle bethel

hi i'm krista carter i'm the program coordinator  

hi i'm crystal williams i'm also program  coordinator with emergency management

hi i'm mike kintz i'm the county's  emergency preparedness coordinator  

hi i'm greg walsh the city  of salem emergency manager

i'm going to show you the tools that you can  use to sandbag first we're going to start  

with the types of bags this here is a plastic  bag this one here is a woven bag and then you  

also might find burlap these are available at  your local retail stores for you to purchase  

then we also have a shovel that you could  use but for sandbagging they actually have  

a sandbagging tool that if you're doing it by  yourself would come in really handy so i'm going  

to turn it over to my team and they're going  to actually show you how to fill the sandbag  

prior to doing your sandbagging you want to  consider your safety while you can while you build  

the bags some safety items you can consider are  some gloves for your hands and some safety goggles  

for your eyes to help prevent the sand from  getting in there also a first aid kit can help  

you in case something should happen and you need  to render some aid to yourself or your partner

one of my favorite tips in in order to  make it easy to fill the sandbag is to  

fill it over so this is a double bag and we're  going to show you how to do that a little bit  

but you just want to fold it  over similar to sock folding  

and make sure that it's really tight so  the sand just flows right into the bag

so my tip is consistency if you look at  these bags that have already been filled  

you will notice that some of them are  a little bit full more full than others  

and that's going to make it really hard to  stack them when you go to stack your wall  

so being consistent and keeping them equal  and only filling them up half to a third  

otherwise they're too heavy then you will be able  to stack them better if they're not over full

so my tip is going to be more of  an explanation on stacking the bags  

you want to make sure that when you put on your  second layer that you put it in the center and  

as you put it if you drop it it does help to  fill in that gap in between the layer below

all right so my tip is to actually if you have  an extra tarp make a burrito this is a great  

way of making sure the water stays out doesn't  get in between those cracks so what you can do  

is you can create a small level tuck the back  side in and if the water is flowing this way  

as i stack it up i can actually pull it  this way and create a more stable barrier

crystal is going to demonstrate to us on  how we would double layer the bags so that  

it would be less porous for water and sand  to see through so this is just a good tip  

on how to be more successful  with building your sandbag

now we're going to have krista  help crystal fill the sandbag  

using teamwork and again we're only going to go  either a half away or a third of the way full  

so that we can stack them along the wall  to prevent the water from seeping in

great job guys thanks

chris is now going to walk us through how to  fill a sandbag if you don't have a teammate  

again the sandbag is double that and she's  gonna feel it about halfway to a third of the  

way full so that when you go strap it along  the wall it will form along with the other

sandbags great job krista another tip is to take  your time take breaks if needed and please don't  

feel too full because you can hurt your back  what a great presentation i learned so much  

about filling sandbags and now i know how to do it  the correct way um so while we still have all of  

you here i was hoping that we could do a q a we  received some some general emergency management  

and personal preparedness questions and it's okay  i'd like to be able to ask some of those to you  

so the very first question we received is  does the county have a plan if the usual  

lines of communication are broken during  the next emergency for example if self  

towers are down or the internet's not working  what's the county's plan for that krista  

that's a great question and we do get asked  that a lot so in the event that traditional  

communications are down we do have a plan in  place if you actually go over to our website  

under public works emergency management you will  see a link for disaster tips it actually has the  

sandbagging information there but there's one  that's called ways to receive emergency alerts  

and you can receive those via telephone cell  phone email you can use the am fm radio or even on  

television and some of these are push alerts and  some of them you need to opt into but going to our  

website is going to be the best and it has all the  ways that you can get emergency alerts on there  

the next question is another one that was asked  about how the county communicates in an emergency  

so has the county thought about having a banner at  the top of our landing web page directing people  

to the emergency service information if we have  a crisis as a matter of fact marion county does  

have a banner across the top of all of the web  pages and there are little buttons at the top  

that right now say covid and one for wildfires  and next to that states emergencies and alerts  

and if you go there you will get the most  recent information needed so due to the  

recent ice storm a lot of people lost power and  many of them didn't have wood burning fireplaces  

so could you discuss what preparations one could  make to stay warm without a wood burning fireplace  

if something like this happens again of course  here at emergency management we always think  

safety first so some inexpensive ways that you can  stay warm without having a wood burning fireplace  

is to have some extra blankets on hand or you  could layer your clothing or have a small room  

that you have designated where you can go  and build off of your body heat from others  

i also would like to point out that if you do  use a generator for warming that you do want to  

operate that generator outside and you want to be  away from doors and windows so that that carbon  

monoxide doesn't come back into the building i  also wanted to let you know that you could go to  

ready.gov for more information on how  to stay warm or the department of energy  

during emergencies you may also want to talk to  those that are in your city because they may have  

opened up either a warming or a cooling or even  a charging station during emergencies so please  

check back out the website for more information so  many folks found themselves not only without heat  

but the inconvenience of not having  electricity so what preparations could  

someone make in order to have an alternate source  of electricity during an extended power outage  

so we can relate to that since it  happened to us uh just a few months ago  

so have a plan in place on what sort of things you  want to that need electricity in your house so if  

you're looking for a heat source you'll want  something for your furnace if you're looking  

for your refrigerator freezer that's going to  be a larger purchase with probably a generator  

but with battery powered flashlights and  battery-powered radios that is small and  

convenient have extra cell phone chargers  around you can invest in solar panels  

there's another whole caveat to that but just like  the generators that kathleen was talking about  

that might be a way to go since we brought up  generators let's go into a little more detail  

about the safety surrounding generator use could  you explain how to safely use a generator how  

to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning and how to  safely store gasoline to power that generator  

of course thank you for asking again here at  emergency management safety is always first  

first you need to acknowledge that there are many  different types of generators so you're actually  

going to want to follow the manual and guidelines  that the manufacturer has laid out on the usage  

of your generator to avoid the carbon monoxide  poisoning you definitely want to store and run  

your generator outside and away from doors and  windows to avoid that carbon monoxide poisoning  

for fuel i'm going to direct  you to the department of energy  

where they can talk about fuel storage but  here's a couple of tips that i was able to  

locate for you they state that you do not want to  store your fuels next to a heat source and you do  

not want to store them inside where people occupy  the space so please remember to store them safely  

and store them in containers that are marked  with what is being stored gasoline diesel propane  

kerosene those are different fuels and you want to  make sure that you're keeping them in a cool place

the one tip i would provide is be get a kit make  a plan and stay informed those are the three big  

things when an emergency or disaster happens these  kits have a lot of equipment in them and supplies  

including food and water that is definitely  needed in addition kits are available for  

animals children and cats and dogs so get  a kit so i'd like to personally thank you  

for your presentation today i've learned a  lot and you've provided us with many resources  

some of which we'll provide at the end of  this presentation at the end of this video  

so as a reminder those watching you can get  more detailed information if you go to the  

marion county emergency management page  there's several links there that you can  

that you can use um so just  remember get a kit make a plan stay

informed

you