Wood Says County Led Storm Sheltering While City Focused on Streets, Utilities
Salina City Manager Jacob Wood said the city and Saline County each had specific responsibilities following the June 8 storm, including separate roles for sheltering, emergency coordination, debris response, and disaster reimbursement.
During a city commission discussion, officials addressed concerns about whether the City of Salina had provided overnight shelter and cooling locations after the storm. Mayor Mike Hoppock said the city opened the Salina Fieldhouse as a daytime cooling station and offered both Tony’s Pizza Events Center and the Fieldhouse for overnight stays.
Wood said Saline County Emergency Management declined those locations because the county has its own sheltering process and resources.
According to Wood, sheltering has traditionally been a county function.
“Sheltering has always been a function of the county,” Wood said during the discussion. “This isn’t the first time they’ve done it.”
Wood said after a disaster, city and county staff meet with emergency management to determine responsibilities and coordinate the response. He described it as a broad group of city and county staff sitting down to decide who is handling each part of the emergency response.
Wood said one early concern was finding shelter locations that had power. According to the discussion, the first overnight shelter was opened at Kansas Wesleyan University. The second night, sheltering moved across the street to University Methodist Church. Wood said additional backup locations were also available if the first location filled up.
He said the shelter was available for families and pets, and information was shared through Facebook and Saline County Emergency Management’s Facebook page.
Hoppock said emergency communication may need further review because radio stations were off the air and many residents were without electricity after the storm. He said communicating where people could go for help may be something the city and county discuss moving forward.
Wood also explained the disaster declaration process tied to FEMA reimbursement. He said the county first declares a disaster verbally when officials know there is an issue, then follows with a more formal declaration that goes to the state. The state then makes its own disaster declaration.
After that, Wood said, local governments begin calculating disaster-related costs. He said that includes expenses from the city, county, and volunteers. Regular staff hours are generally not reimbursed, but overtime, rented equipment, and certain other storm-related costs may qualify.
Wood said the city was tracking those costs as part of its standard disaster response process.
The city’s storm-related work included clearing streets, running generators for water and wastewater infrastructure, managing lift stations, supporting public safety access, and addressing tree damage in streets and parks.
Wood said street crews were out around 10 p.m. the night of the storm and that most trees blocking streets, where no power lines were involved, were removed within 24 hours.
He said water crews also worked through the storm response, including running generators at lift stations to keep sewage from backing up into homes. Wood said the city filled water towers and basins ahead of the storm after seeing the forecast, which helped maintain water service during the outage.
Wood said the city logged more than 3,000 hours of overtime in the weeks following the storm.
The discussion showed that the city viewed its main responsibilities as keeping streets open, supporting public safety access, maintaining water and wastewater systems, opening daytime cooling space, and coordinating with the county. The county, according to Wood, handled the sheltering process through Saline County Emergency Management.