Emergency Management in Sonoma County, by Dr. Nancy Brown
Our speaker for Thursday, January 8, 2026, was Nancy Brown, PhD, Community Preparedness Program Manager for Sonoma County’s Department of Emergency Management. Dr. Brown received her master’s degree from Long Beach State University and her PhD from Massey University in New Zealand. She worked in emergency preparedness for the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim from 2012 to 2015. She joined Sonoma County in her current position in 2019.
Nancy believes that one of the most important keys to surviving emergencies is to know your neighbors. People often get left behind in natural disasters for a variety of reasons, including not hearing about the disaster until it’s too late and not discussing what needs to be done with neighbors in advance. Her department includes 20 emergency managers, many of whom work with neighborhood leaders in community support programs that help communities prepare for disasters. Nancy says, “meet your streets” so that you and your neighbors know how to stay in contact in an emergency.
Key concepts in preparedness include staying informed, making a plan, and having a kit. To stay informed, you can sign up with the SoCoAlert, the NOAA Weather Channel (buy a radio from Amazon), Nixle, socoemergecy.org, and CivicReady. The Department also publishes a Personal Emergency Plan, including personal information and contact information, and checklists for your “go bag,” sheltering in place,” and evacuation information. Your “go bag” should include food and water for 3 days plus clothes, blankets, battery-operated radio, and prescriptions, etc. (The Personal Emergency Plan has a complete checklist.) You should also have a “sheltering-in-place” kit, including 1 gallon of water per day per person, food for 7 days, and other items. Other ideas for being prepared are having emergency out-of-state phone numbers, since those locations may be accessible when local numbers are down, and knowing your emergency zone.
Thank you, Nancy, for all of the great information you provided, and for working to improve and safeguard our community. Note, you can find much of this information, and a lot more, on socoemergency.org.
