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In this second conversation on emergency management, Jan sits down with Margo Lalich, a public health leader with more than 30 years of experience.

Margo was Clatsop County's first public health preparedness coordinator, hired in 2002, and later served as interim public health director during the COVID-19 response.

Margo explains how 9/11 pushed the federal government to invest in public health infrastructure, and how that money reached small coastal communities. She walks through the county's early full-scale exercises, regional planning with neighboring counties, and the incident command structures that paid off during the pandemic.

She also shares lessons from the 2007 coastal gale, including power outages that left pharmacies without access to medications.

Her main message is that relationships matter more than money. Margo also covers what happens when federal funding shrinks, how planning has to include older adults and people with disabilities, and why a binder full of plans is no substitute for practiced protocols.

She closes with ways listeners can get involved through county volunteer programs, Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), and the Medical Reserve Corps.

Chapter markers

00:00 Welcome and Part Two Setup
01:36 Public Health After 9/11
03:07 Bioterrorism Funding Reaches Clatsop County
05:16 Oregon's Own Bioterrorism History
05:49 Regional Planning and Full-Scale Exercises
08:30 Incident Command and Shrinking Federal Funding
09:34 Training, Storms, and the 2007 Coastal Gale
10:48 Putting Decades of Planning to Work in COVID-19
14:03 How 9/11 Became a Catalyst for Cooperation
15:22 Camp Rilea and the Community Pandemic Response
16:05 Tsunamis, Cascadia, and Lessons from the Gale
17:55 Staying Resilient When Funding Shrinks
20:24 Planning for Older Adults and People with Disabilities
21:40 How to Get Involved: Volunteers, CERT, and the Medical Reserve Corps
24:42 Community-Led Preparedness on the North Coast
26:41 Plans vs. Protocols: What Works on the Ground
28:04 Every Community Is Different
29:26 Closing Thoughts
30:01 Outro: Sharing the Episode

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