The mission of the Goleta Partnership for Preparedness (“GP4P”) is to encourage our community - both residents and businesses to be prepared in the event of an emergency. The GP4P, which kicked off in the fall of 2007, is comprised of the City of Goleta, the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Santa Barbara County Chapter of the American Red Cross.
The first goal of the partnership was to raise funds to purchase two American Red Cross Disaster Services Trailers to be located north and south of Highway 101 in Goleta. Through generous contributions from local businesses, the City now boasts two 100 person Disaster Services trailers located right here in Goleta which can be easily accessed by emergency personnel in a disaster. Both trailers were used in the recent Gap Fire to provide housing for evacuees.
The second goal of the partnership was to kick off a preparedness initiative to engage our local business community in a series of meetings and workshops on issues and needs specific to businesses. In February 2008, a business preparedness workshop was held in conjunction with the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Office of the Governor.
Future work includes a public information and community outreach campaign designed to increase resident’s emergency preparedness efforts.