CENTERVILLE—The worst time to prepare is after a disaster strikes. Davis County has been hit with major windstorms, an earthquake and other emergencies in the last few years. There’s certainly more to come and the Bountiful City Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Council is trying to make sure residents are ready when that happens. 

The group is hosting the South Davis Emergency Preparedness Fair Sept. 7 at the Megaplex Theatres at Legacy Crossing in Centerville. It is free and open to the public. The theme is “Safe Today, Secure Tomorrow.”

“The whole idea behind the fair is to get our citizens prepared for any emergency and just as importantly to have them prepared to work with the various aid agencies and public service groups that will be coming in and helping,” said Bountiful City Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Council Community Liaison volunteer Cacey Bowen. “So besides stressing the preparedness portion like where to buy food and get equipment, think about how you’re going to eat or what you need to do.”

Plus, an offshoot is cyber security and keeping information safe, he said. “We also bring in all of the agencies that would be involved in an emergency and it’s not just the fire department or the police department or those types of agencies. But also the utility groups. We have the public utilities, the water departments, Rocky Mountain Power as well as the National Guard.”

Bowen said they want to get the people who will be helping the citizens. “They’re trying to build a relationship and bond between them. We’re very community supported in trying to get the police interfacing well with the public. We’re lucky in Davis County that we have such good police departments and the citizens have a good rapport with them. We’re just trying to continue to strengthen that.”

The fair will feature vendor booths where visitors can buy preparedness items. “Outside we’ll have people that are doing demonstrations,” said Bowen. “We’ve got Whole House Generators, Intermountain Wind & Solar and Croft Power Equipment.”

Croft is going to present on chainsaw usage, how to safely use them and how to take care of them to make certain that they will work in the case of an emergency, he said. “I talked Mark Croft into that because the majority of disasters that we’ve responded to in Davis County over the past few years have been windstorms and the primary tool in getting things restored are chainsaws.”

There will also be speakers throughout the day. Marcello Surjopolos, President of Food Storage Depot will present on topics such as seven steps to emergency preparedness, evacuation, emergency kits, emergency water, short and long term food storage and a variety of other things people would need in the event of an emergency. 

“It’s my personal mission for 10,000 families to get prepared,” said Surjopolos. “It’s a perfect storm of bad things happening. I don’t want to lead by fear, I’ve just seen more things coming for the family.”

Inflation is happening here, he said. “As an employer you try not to raise people’s pay but things get more expensive and they’re not paid more. There have also been a ton of cyber attacks a year. There’s just a lot of things happening.”

Surjopolos offers the preparednesschallenge.com where he teaches the principles of preparedness over the course of five days. The workshop is usually $600 but he is giving it for $17 at the fair to get people started, he said. “It sets them up with the basics to get them started. People got used to bad news in 2020 and 2021. They’re not as motivated to get prepared.”

Fear is a great short term motivator, said Surjopolos. “You have to prepare because you love it – not for the short term.”

The fair runs from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. The theater is located at 1075 Legacy Crossing Blvd. Centerville.