Christmas Day 2009 was marked by a blackout that left 17,000 Blaine County residents without electricity for up to 24 hours.
While the event put elected officials on guard and led to a winter preparedness campaign for 2011, many people will tell you that the effects of the blackout weren't all bad.
"Neighbors got together and helped one another out," said Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling. "They cooked meals at one another's houses and relied on each other for wood stoves, gas stoves and generators."
Femling said the sudden loss of electricity led to impromptu "Christmas festivals" in neighborhoods around the valley.
"People played card games instead of watching TV," Femling said.
Femling said if the blackout had persisted another 24 hours, things could have become more serious for some residents.
"We would have been thinking about getting people to shelters and feeding them," he said.
The Sheriff's Office responded to thousands of calls from residents wanting to know how long the power would be out and what to do in case it did not come back on right away, leading county officials to designate December 2010 as "Winter Preparedness Month."
The effort aims to get people ready to support themselves, and possibly others, in case of another emergency. It advises residents to set aside whatever they will need to survive for at least three days, the amount of time it can take for outside assistance to reach the valley.
Blaine County residents are instructed to go to http://blainecounty911.org/systems.asp, to register for the emergency alert system. Once registered, they will be informed by telephone, text message or e-mail about road closures, incident details and what to expect in the immediate future.
"We learned last Christmas that a lot of people had not been thinking about taking care of themselves in case of an emergency," said Hailey City Councilwoman Carol Brown.
Brown came up through the ranks of the National Forest Service as a firefighter and represents the city of Hailey in countywide meetings on emergency preparedness.
"'Neighbors Helping Neighbors' is the term used nationally," Brown said. "The responsibility for helping in case of an emergency should not fall just on emergency responders and elected officials, but on regular citizens."
Brown advises creating a 72-hour emergency survival kit, as described on the website www.ready.gov/america/getakit/.
She also advises taking steps to make sure others in the neighborhood, especially the elderly, have what they need to take care of themselves, in case of another power outage.
"We are much more engaged as a community than we were a year ago," she said.
Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com
People gather at the Pioneer Saloon in Ketchum during the December 2009 power outage. Photo by Mountain Express
