FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Office of Gov. John Hickenlooper
Eric Brown, 303-547-5308 c, eric.brown@state.co.us
Gov. Hickenlooper declares disaster emergency for Mesa County mudslide, allocates $500,000 for response
DENVER — Friday, May 30, 2014 — Gov. John Hickenlooper today signed an Executive Order that declares a state of disaster emergency due to the West Salt Creek Landslide in Mesa County. The order allocates $500,000 from the state’s Disaster Emergency Fund to pay for the response and technical assessments.
“The landslide area continues to be unstable, making recovery operations too dangerous to attempt,” the governor’s order says. “The situation continues to evolve and presents significant risks to the community because responders, citizens, private homes, agricultural facilities, county roads and oil/gas infrastructure in the immediate vicinity are still vulnerable to further landslides and potential flooding.”
The Executive Order also memorializes the governor’s verbal order from earlier this week to activate the Colorado National Guard to provide aviation support including flying federal, state, local and private sector personnel providing technical assistance and incident response.
The order says technical assessments are in progress by the U.S. Geological Service, the Colorado Geological Survey and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will provide technical assistance with the flood risk, and CH2M Hill will also provide technical assistance on a voluntary basis.
The U.S. Forest Service, Colorado State Patrol and the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management are assisting Mesa County and are participating in the Unified Command Post for the incident.
The full Executive Order.
