Jun 16, 2021

Weishaar says emergency declaration did its job during pandemic

Posted Jun 16, 2021 11:00 PM

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The state's disaster declaration in regard to the pandemic is over. The declaration was lifted on Tuesday. Reno County Emergency Management Director Adam Weishaar says the change really doesn’t do much locally until the county commission takes further action.

“Right now it really doesn’t change a whole lot for us,” Weishaar said. “We still have a local disaster declaration in place until the end of June.”

Weishaar says, as of now, they really have all of the supplies and PPE that is needed for any future requests.

“Right now the only thing we've asked for recently are some bandaids and we can find those bandaids locally,” Weishaar said. “We have a good supply of personal protective equipment that can go out to local businesses and health care organizations if we need it.”

Whether the public agreed or disagreed that the declaration was needed, it did provide much-needed items.

“There were times where we couldn’t find any gloves, couldn’t find any personal protective equipment and the only option we had was to go to the state and ask for those things,” Weishaar said. “The state provided personal protective equipment, they provided ventilators, they provided medication.”

Weishaar expects the county commission to take some type of action on the matter in the near future.

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