How prepared is your city or town for an emergency/disaster?

I have to say, I have no idea! I guess I’m not on the need to know list. 😄 A few years ago, I remember there was some problem with the water supply in some parts of our town, (pop. circa 30,000) and within an hour, the water company had set up a couple of different bases where they gave out many large bottles of drinking water. I don’t remember any other incidents where emergency preparedness has been an issue.

ETA We are not prone to any extreme weather events, no hurricanes, tornadoes, bush fires, etc. And while we do get lots of rain, the whole town is well above flood levels. 

I don't actually know about my area specifically. But, since we're right across the river from Washington, DC, and neighbors with the Pentagon (our fire department was actually the first on the scene on 9/11 when the plane hit the Pentagon) I suspect everyone who needs to be prepared, is prepared.  

Yeah, I am not sure how I would know. We do occasionally get a snow/ice storm that knocks out some electricity in areas for days, and it's definitely possible we'll get a big earthquake at some point.

We have an emergency management department right in the middle of town. Our local fire department is an emergency shelter. There has been some flooding in some areas they have responded to. I don't really know. I guess no one knows for sure until some disaster strikes.

That does sound like a long time to get the repairs made.

I live in wildfire area so we are pretty prepared for certain emergencies I guess though I think we could do better, this city has a lot to learn from our last big forest fire.

Warming shelters have very little to do with homeless people. Warming shelters are for warming people who have no heat for whatever reason ( power outage or whatever ) It’s kind of weird to say you don’t have homeless so you don’t have warming shelters. We don’t have a homeless issue in my town either and yet there are 2 daily warming shelters and 4 more can be added in case of widespread emergencies.

My specific town is probably not terribly well prepared to proceed with day to day activities in an emergency. They are however, well prepared to provide emergency response to any area of town for most emergencies. Going to town hall to file a permit might not happen if the power was out, they do have a generator though so who knows, but emergency response is the main priority for that. So while I might not be able to renew my dog license, they do have the means to respond to an emergency.

I believe it's a good idea to be prepared yourself, and to not expect help, or at least not help right away, in the event of a disaster.

I recently bought a small supply of dried meals. Not super prepper crazy, but enough to go for over a week and it has a long shelf life.
I do have canned and dried foods normally as a part of my pantry. Since I don't live in a town, I normally keep groceries to last no less than a week. I could easily go for many weeks without shopping for anything other than fresh milk and fresh veggies, but the meal plan might be a bit weird. LOL. I do keep a little bit of powdered milk on hand.

We usually have at least 300 gallons of gasohol in a barrel at our house, and usually 500 gallons of road diesel. Probably closer to 500 gallons of both gasohol and red diesel on the farm.

We have a solar panel setup that we can use to pump water if needed. We use that in pastures that do not have any electricity available. It is portable and we move to to wherever we have cows pastured, so we could always pump water, even in the event that tractors could not start.

We have 4 PTO generators that can run our farm and houses. These are BIG generators that are hooked to the PTO shaft of a tractor. All our sites are generator ready - just pull the switch so there is no backfeed and plug in the generator at the pole. We also have a couple smaller sized Honda gas generators that we use if the weather doesn't allow our solar setup to charge.

I have basic first aid, although I would like to beef that up a little better if I can.

We could survive a very long time, if something really terrible ever happened, by hunting, trapping, fishing and foraging, if needed. I am not super prepper crazy. We don't have a bunker. But if it came down to that - we could survive and defend.

I don’t find it weird at all. We almost never freeze, and power has not been out for an extended amount of time since we moved here in 2008. It’s possible we have warming shelters or a plan in place, but I don’t know if they’ve ever been needed for anything other than the Statewide power failure.

eta: I just checked and while our city’s Emergency Management page has good info especially for being prepared personally, it does not list any shelters in the area, for heat (our biggest issue) or cold. For heat is does suggest people spend the day in air conditioned public spaces such as the library if they don’t have working a/c. When I googled for shelters specifically we have an animal and women’s shelter. The other closest are over 20 miles away. 

The city of Houston is pretty well prepared for our periodic hurricanes and tropical storms. The state of Texas’ electrical grid is a whole other matter. 🙄

One fun thing about living here is that you know that when crap hits the fan, H‑E‑B trucks loaded with food, water, and other supplies will roll into town long before the Red Cross or FEMA gets here.