Tonight I picked up my volunteer badge and a signed form that will allow me to obtain a key card that affords 24/7 access to police station and fleet area of a small city an hour from my home. This wasn't what I had in mind when I signed up for initial responder training, but it worked out this way because my home area doesn't offer that sort of training or volunteer opportunity. I felt that in participating in the volunteer program was a way to give some value back to the organization that provided the training.

My goal is to get my county or other local emergency management offices to make some programs available to my community so my neighbors will also have the opportunity to get some disaster response training. There is a meeting coming up to talk about it.

In other news, our local department of transportation has scheduled public meetings this month to obtain input from the residents along our highway that is going to be reconstructed following the big flood. It's a wonderful opportunity for us, and a luxury because usually government projects are implemented without involving those most affected.

The construction work won't start until the end of 2015, and will take two years. The amount of work to be done would usually take 8 to 10 years, so this will be very fast moving, as those things go.

One thing they want to know is whether we could tolerate our highway being completely closed for a number of days in order to get that part done quickly as opposed to having one-lane roads for many additional weeks or months. I can think of one section in particular where I think they should completely shut the highway, and mind you, this would very severely inconvenience me, but I think it'd be worth it to get it over with.