County representatives from Northern California met with state officials in Chico this week to discuss how they can better collaborate to manage disasters.
California Health and Human Services oversees social services and healthcare in the state, but it also plays an important role in disaster preparedness and recovery.
Kim Johnson, the state’s health secretary, met with about 20 supervisors and said the agency is doing everything they can to assist counties in being proactive in preparing for catastrophe.
“Having evacuation plans, working with congregate settings like assisted living settings to ensure they have evacuation plans and contingency plans …” Johnson said. “How the state’s helping facilitate mutual aid from some of those settings and how we can also be better partners in recovery of disaster.”
Butte County has been hit repeatedly by major disasters, including the 2024 Park and Thompson fires, the 2020 North Complex and the 2018 Camp Fire.
Supervisor Doug Teeter was at the conference to talk about the area’s needs.
“The financial resources, the human resources, that our county government has just can never like focus on one disaster, because now we're on to the next one,” Teeter said. “I think that's what a big challenge is — how do we focus on those that are in past disasters when we're just still marching forward?”
The conference comes days after Butte County supervisors voted to send a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking for help with ongoing wildfire recovery.
“If I put it into a couple of words, it's like treat us fairly and similarly to how you're going to treat those down in LA, because we got to admit political clout in Southern California vs. rural Northern California is quite different,” Teeter said.
The California State Association of Counties hosted the conference.
Teeter said it served as a way for county officials to gain a deeper understanding of what each county is experiencing as they continue to recover from disaster.
