Emergency Preparedness and Latino Outreach

Our Goal

The Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District Board annually sets goals that become the framework of staff projects for the year. One goal for the 2020-2021 fiscal year is to focus on community preparedness for wildfire, flooding, severe weather events and Cascadia. In addition, the Sisters Country Vision Project outlined four focus areas in their Sisters Country Vision Plan in 2018. One focus area, Resilient Sisters, includes disaster preparedness as a vision strategy.

In early August a team from the Fire District met to discuss a preparedness campaign “Sisters Country Prepared and Ready,” that would meet the Board’s goal, as well as support the efforts of the Sisters Country Vision Project.

The team settled on a four-page informational insert prepared by the Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District in partnership with the Nugget Newspaper, Deschutes County Emergency Management and the Oregon Office of Emergency Management. The four-page insert provided readers with information on how to be prepared for any disaster in Sisters Country.

In the spirit of inclusiveness, the team made it a goal to ensure this document was made available to the Latino community of Sisters. Fire Chief Roger Johnson and Director Jack McGowan from the Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District met with Latino community leaders to devise a plan to make it happen. Once the document was created, staff worked to convert the entire document into a Spanish version. District Fire Corps member, Margie Lombardo and community members Bill and Wendy Birnbaum offered to review the document after translation to ensure the messaging was correct.

The Nugget insert included a message on the front-page directing Latino community members to an online Spanish version. The Fire District also created a Preparedness page on its website that includes links to all important preparedness documents in both English and Spanish. In addition, hard copies of the Spanish version were made available to be distributed throughout the Latino community in Sisters.

Chief Johnson said, “It is crucial that important preparedness and safety information is made available to every community member in Sisters Country. ”