Adair and Guthrie County Emergency Management received two awards at a recent conference, beating out Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPC) from four other states and nine tribal nations. Coordinator Bob Kempf says one award focused on his department’s effective use of social media. “Bringing things like the weather information, community things, things of preparedness, that we post on our Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as our mobile app.”

The second award was the small LEPC award for outstanding achievement in planning, prevention and risk reduction in the community. Kempf says this award was eligible for communities with a population of 20,000 or fewer. “That’s basically for all the activities that we do and have done over the numerous years in the past, as far as conducting training and planning for not only the hazardous materials type events, but for all the other manmade and natural hazards we have.”

The awards were presented earlier this month at the 2015 Region 7 LEPC Emergency Planning and Response Conference in Nebraska City, Nebraska. It included LEPCs from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri Nebraska and nine tribal nations.