Weather emergency on reservation lessens

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Aided by improving weather and an intricate relief effort, Navajo Nation officials indicated Wednesday morning they have gained the upper hand in the current state of emergency from winter storms.

But the unending battle to get vehicles into remote sites as part of "2005 Operation Hashtl'ish (Mud)" has stretched the Law Enforcement Department to the limit in the Chinle precinct.

One of the two people assigned by Johnny Johnson, acting manager of the Emergency Management Department, to command field operations, Lieutenant Ronni Wauneka, said that without the help of the Apache County Sheriff's Office the patrol officers wouldn't have been able to handle all the calls.

She was one of many at a briefing in the executive office building to compliment the effort by all agencies to help each other, including the IHS and BIA, the Arizona Governor's Office, the state's Emergency Management Department, the Public Safety and Transportation Departments and the counties, along with all the various Navajo Nation divisions.

Sheriff-Emergency Management Director Brian Hounshell emphasized the county was supporting the tribe.

As an example of the cooperation, he said that Tuesday night a convoy of three deputies were attempting to take an ambulance crew to provide medical help to a family nine miles from the highway at Pinon. The entire parade of vehicles got stuck in the mud up to their hubcaps. They had to wait from about 11 p.m. to around 3 a.m. for the ground to freeze enough so that tribal police with a 4-wheel drive wrecker could reach them to pull them loose.

Tough going
"It's tough out there; it's cold out there and the mud's bad, bad. But our people have the training and it's hard out there, but it's part of the job," he said.

He also reported that three unnamed non-Indian hunters, from the Show Low area of southern Navajo County, had turned up safe. They were located around 1:45 p.m. Wednesday, he said.

Wednesday morning Sergeant Ronald Gene of the tribal Law Enforcement Department said a search and rescue operation, with much more manpower and equipment, was being mounted.

District I's road yard in Chinle was being used as a staging area and, Hounshell said, all the county's available heavy equipment is up north. Supervisor Jim Claw's workers were hauling in wood and coal by the pickup load.

In a report Monday, Claw wrote, "By experience, we know that what California gets, we usually get," referring to the weather.

And in responding residents should first contact their local chapter house, or the nearest police station Claw said the order of priorities agreed to on Jan. 5 weremedical patients, the elderly, the handicapped and single mothers with children, all in the remote areas. School bus routes are ranked number two.

Peabody donates coal
During Wednesday's briefing in Window Rock, attended by about 30 people, Johnson noted that Peabody Western Coal Company had provided three trailers full of coal, with one load dropped at the Hard Rock Chapter House on Black Mesa and two at the Apache County District 2 Road Yard in Fort Defiance, which is a new facility with plenty of room. The emergency management director said the coal would go to the chapter houses to be distributed to those most in need.

The bulk loads still need to be bagged for easy distribution, Johnson said. He commented that if officials in charge of buildings don't voluntarily provide space when needed, it could be commandeered to meet the emergency.

Johnson also ranked wood, water, food and medicines as the greatest needs.

President Joe Shirley Jr.'s staff attorney, Michelle Dotson, told the group Peabody also has offered to do road work. Others added the tribal bus system also has been helping where it can.

To aid in communications, Cellular One of Northeast Arizona, headquartered in Show Low, supplied 15 of the radio-telephones for the duration of the emergency, plus several portable radios.

Since water is being distributed in small bottles of up to a gallon in size, the department has rounded up 22 barrels of 55 gallons each. Johnson said once they are cleaned they will be used to distribute water, but that many more will be needed.

He also noted that two more New Mexico counties, Bernalillo (Albuquerque) and Rio Arriba, are ready to help, and that the New Mexico National Guard has been requested through state officials. Although battling its own wet weather destructions, he added that the vast resources of Flagstaff-based Coconino County also are being offered to the tribe, if needed.

No Utah requests
As of Wednesday morning, there had not been any requests from the seven Utah chapters, although he said Navajo Mountain probably the most inaccessible chapter reported all roads muddy. There is only one maintained dirt road into the chapter, from the east and south though Inscription House Chapter.

Lt. Wauneka said the roads are starting to get muddier in the eastern portion of the reservation, although Public Safety Division Director Samson Cowboy told the group he was able to drive a sedan over the dirt roads from Lake Valley Chapter on N.M. Route 371 to Nageezi on U.S. 550. He also said the snow finally reached the Continental Divide between Thoreau and Crownpoint.

Wauneka reported that overnight about 8 inches of new snow fell in the White Clay neighborhood and about 10 inches in the Forest Lake Chapter up on Black Mesa.

The lieutenant said the biggest problem is getting complete information when people contact the chapter houses.

Natural Resources Division Director Arvin Trujillo told the group his division's Agriculture Department is working on getting hay lined up, through NAPI and the Colorado River Indian Tribes(CRIT). During the Kelsey Begay administration, during the drought, CRIT provided hay for cattle and horses, with the Navajo Nation sending a convoy to the Parker-based reservation to bring back the valuable feed. Johnson said so far only eight hay requests had been received.

As with the coal, the hay distribution for emergencies will be handled by the chapters, he added.

The group seemed to agree with Trujillo that after the emergency passes, a debriefing should be held so the response manual can be revised to add more of what works easily, what can be made to work with some effort and eliminate what doesn't work.

Sgt. Gene indicated this should include such factors as having active contacts with chapter officials so chapter houses can be kept open at night as command posts and having at least one big military truck in each of the seven police precincts.

Controller Mark Grant urged the divisions to go to their Navajo Nation Council oversight committees and have them transfer any needed funds to meet the emergency, since budgets don't normally contain such line items.

— To contact reporter Jim Maniaci, telephone (505) 371-5443.