EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS & BLOCKWATCH PROGRAM

For many years, the WHCCA has had an informal relationship with a neighborhood "Emergency Preparedness and Blockwatch Program."  Currently communication between the WHCCA and this program is excellent, because the volunteer head of the Emergency Preparedness and Blockwatch Program, Wally Larsen, is also the President of the WHCCA. However, to ensure and improve awareness and efficiency in the future, the WHCCA board has formalized this relationship: one or more board members will be assigned each year to serve as Block Watch Coordinators .

The key elements of this program and answers to frequently asked questions are linked below.
Please note: emergency first aid kit locations are listed below.

• Block Watch Program
• Emergency Preparedness
• Which block do I live in?
• Who is my Block Captain and where is my block's first aid kit?
• Who can I contact about the Steering Committees?
• Block Watch Corner
• Additional Resources

• Maintain a current list of residents by block and street address
• Alert residents to local safety and crime concerns
• Keep close contact with Bellevue Police and Fire Departments, provide an avenue for inputs and outputs to and from them
• Encourage the maintenance of a friendly and concerned neighborhood

Every household should be prepared to handle and emergency, be it of short duration, such as a power outage, or of longer duration and greater severity, such as extremely heavy snowfall or a sever earthquake. The City of Bellevue, working through its Fire Department, sponsors the Strengthening Preparedness Among Neighbors (SPAN) Program. This program is designed to assist households and neighborhoods in preparing for the most feared emergency in our area, a severe earthquake. In preparing for the worst, the lesser emergencies will most probably be handled as well. To quote a SPAN flyer, "Following a moderate to major earthquake, emergency services will be overwhelmed. Through the SPAN program, neighbors learn how to get personally prepared and an easy method to organize into safe and effective response teams to meet their own immediate needs." The WHCCA is engaged with the Bellevue Fire Department to implement the SPAN program.

The Block Watch program provides an ideal organization for emergency preparedness planning and should the occasion arise, it should also provide an effective response team. Toward this end, we are now in the midst of organizing a response team for each of our 18 blocks. The team will be headed by the Block Captain and will be composed of volunteers from within the block to provide for vital emergency functions including:

• Bellevue Fire Department (425-452-6892)
  • Emergency Management Program
  • Preparing for Winter Storms
• Issaquah Fire Department (425-837-3130)
  • Family Emergency Planning
• King County Emergency Management
• Bellevue Police Department (452-6917)
• Issaquah Police Department
• Seattle Red Cross

last updated March 10, 2004