“My question is, what if there is an emergency situation, like someone has a heart attack, or there is a fire.  What is the plan?”

“There is no plan.”

What?  Did I hear that right?  Having been through the ordeal of The Cold Springs Wildfire, a contingency plan for emergencies was foremost in my mind.  I still remember that day vividly.  How I raced home, driving well over the speed limit.  I had to get out our cats and dogs out of the house.

I didn’t care about “the stuff.”  The furniture, computers, skis, and bikes could all go up in smoke.  But the thought of Simon and Zuni being burned to death.  That is a thought I could not bear.  And what if was your child at home, with no way to get out?

If you live in Nederland, you are dependent on Highway 119, Boulder Canyon.  It is our lifeline to civilization — jobs, shopping, transit.  When the Great Flood of 2013 wiped out the roadway, it caused great stress to Bryon and me for the month it was closed.  More than doubling my commute, spending over and hour driving down the rutted Gold Hill Road.  It is not something I want to repeat.

We’ve known for years that the repairs made to re-open were “temporary.”  After all, a big orange sign at the mouth of the canyon spells it out.  I’m all for making the needed repairs and putting up with delays, even if it takes 20 months.

Concerned and wanting to get a better idea of the specifics of the project, I decided to join in the telephone “town hall” last night.  Things didn’t get off to a good start when CDOT emailed me the wrong access code to their telephone “town hall.”  Thanks to Facebook, I was finally able to locate the right code, 10 minutes late.  How does the communications department manage to email and post the wrong access code?  That was a sign of things to come.

When I heard about CDOT’s plan to enact two 2-hour closures of the canyon, I got worried.  What if another fire breaks out while I’m at work.  Surely, the powers that be at CDOT will have factored this into their plan.  They will have something in place to immediately open up the canyon, allowing home owners to get home and firefighters to respond.  They will know this.

But they didn’t.  Literally, a concerned home owner stated the obvious, saying, “People could die.  Someone’s husband, child, or sister could die.  That is… unacceptable.

And the response from CDOT?  “There is no plan.”

Why should I be surprised?  There’s doesn’t seem to have been much planning at all when it came to working with the community for the project.

Who knows how long they’ve been planning this project?

The first time I heard anything about it was from a blinking sign at the bottom of the canyon saying, “Road construction starts March 18, delays possible.”

I didn’t hear about it through my local paper.  Or social media.  Or public meetings.  CDOT seems to have made no effort to let any one know about their massive construction project.  Are they just really bad at communicating?  Or were they trying to hide the contentious details?

Having worked for the federal government, and now the county, I’m more than familiar with public meetings.  They are required for any kind of project in the National Park Service.  And there’s a reason for that.

Because being transparent with the local community allows you insight into critical issues that you may not have considered.  Like a contingency plan for opening the canyon in the event of an emergency.  Or how it will affect local bus transit.  You might be made aware of things and be able to incorporate solutions into the plan before you implement it.

I should have known better.  In fact, I knew when CDOT made no attempt to inform anyone in a meaningful way, what their priorities were.  Just in case, I didn’t, they made it crystal clear through their telephone town hall held after they started the project.  “What matters most if the safety of our crews.”

What about the safety of the local community?  We deserve better.

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