What is MDP and how you can help

By JP Crumrine
Correspondent

Thursday, Nov. 16, Mountain Disaster Preparedness (MDP) asked Alex Tardy of the National Weather Service’s San Diego office to discuss the forecast for the coming winter. Tardy has been a frequent guest of MDP.

Before Tardy began, MDP President Mike Feyder briefly discussed the role of MDP that has been serving Hill residents and visitors since 1986. The founders recognized there was limited access to and from Idyllwild (only three main roads) if an emergency, such as an earthquake, were to occur. If even one roadway were closed, life would become more complicated. And as recently as February 2019, two roads were closed for significant time periods.

While there are several first responder units on the Hill – Idyllwild Fire Department (IFD) and two Cal Fire stations — if an emergency, such as wildfire, were to occur near Idyllwild, first responders would be occupied dealing with the situation. Residents and visitors would need access to information more quickly, thus the creation of MDP and WNKI radio station.

That is the purpose of MDP. It gets information directly from IFD or the County Emergency Management Department.

With its donations, MDP has created nine disaster stations on the Hill, from Pine Cove to Mountain Center. It has teams to help with emergencies, including medical professionals.

Another area it sponsors is the Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT). These volunteers — as are all MDP workers — are trained to care for themselves, family, neighbors, friends and the community while the first responders are combating the emergency. Through formal classroom training, they learn basic disaster response skills such as fire safety, light search and rescue, teamwork and first aid.

Feyder noted that the number of trained CERT individuals has declined in recent years, despite just finishing another class. He asked that if anyone is interested, to contact him directly at (310) 251-2926 or MDP via its website at mdpidyllwild.org/about-us/contact-us/.