Police Department
The Town of Truckee is unique in the Region in that it is an incorporated town, rather than an unincorporated area of Nevada or Placer counties. While that distinction provides Truckee with latitude and autonomy in emergency preparation, it also places a high burden of responsibility on the town in the event of a major natural, or human-caused, disaster. Truckee is a highway and medical-care hub with many spokes.

During the past two years, two elaborate training exercises have clearly demonstrated the complexity of coordinating an organized and efficient response to an emergency situation, according to Nichols. The exercises simulated a railroad, tanker car accident spilling thousands of gallons of fuel into the fragile, Truckee River waterway. Nichols put the lessons learned from the training sessions into a specific written emergency response plan completed in 2004.

A representative list of the large number of agencies and jurisdictions potentially involved in a community-scale emergency includes:
Truckee Police Department
Truckee Donner Public Utility District
Truckee Sanitation District
Truckee Public Works Department
Truckee Fire Protection District
Nevada County Health Department
Placer County Environmental Health Department
Sierra County Health Department
Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board
California Department of Forestry
CalTrans
California Highway Patrol
California Health Department
Nevada Division of Forestry
Nevada Department of Transportation
Nevada Highway Patrol
Nevada Health Department
Washoe County Health Department
Reno Fire Department
Reno Police Department
U.S. Department of Transportation
U.S. Transportation Safety Board
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The bottom line, according to Nichols, is that any big event will require a large-scale response across jurisdictional lines. "Communication, cooperation, and preparation are the keys to success," he said. "We feel confident, after our training exercises, that we can handle that type of emergency situation."

Town of Truckee
Extreme snowfall events and wildfires, and their related effects, are the types of emergencies most likely to befall Truckee. Such emergencies can lead to extended power outages, sewer and water disruptions, landslides and avalanches, and other problems. The elderly population and those needing electricity to operate home medical devices are especially vulnerable, according to Truckee Assistant to the Town Manager, Alex Terrazas.

An example of an extreme event was the heavy, wet snowstorm during December 2002. It took down a major Sierra Pacific power transmission line in Martis Valley. Northstar, some of the North Shore, and several neighborhoods in Truckee were without electricity for up to five days. According to Terrazas, the Truckee Donner PUD was able to contact specific residents and provide them with shelter in the town recreation center facility until power was restored to their homes. The PUD maintains a list of persons with special electricity needs.

Hospital District
The Tahoe Forest Hospital District, which maintains the 67-bed full-service hospital in Truckee as well as a 4-bed urgent care facility in Incline Village, Nevada, also has emergency plans in place. According to Molly Moloney with Creative Concepts, the hospital district's public relations firm, the Truckee facility maintains a stockpile of water and food to last patients and staff for four to five days. The hospital also has enough diesel fuel to power back-up generators for five to seven days.

In the event of an extended power outage or other emergency requiring evacuation of the hospital itself, plans are in place to utilize public transportation to move patients to temporary shelters in schools or other town facilities.

The Truckee High and Sierra Mountain Middle School parking lots would be used as a staging area for any roadway evacuation, according to Lt. Nichols. "Those facilities are centrally located between all the major evacuation routes out of town: Highway 89 North and South, Interstate 80 East and West, and Highway 267 South." He added that the town has agreements in place with many local lodging facilities, in addition to schools and other town buildings, for use as emergency shelters.

Getting Emergency Information
"The key to coordination is communication," said Terrazas, who would help head the town's emergency operations center in case of a disaster. "We have a number of ways to keep the public informed. We can use local radio [KTKE 101.5 FM] and TV [Truckee cable channel 6]; notices in public places; door-to-door canvassing; and the Placer County reverse 911 system to send recorded messages directly to home phone lines."

Lt. Nichols summed up the preparation process succinctly: "You can't plan for everything, but you still have to plan. Plans just need to be fluid and flexible enough to allow you to respond to whatever the emergency at hand might be."