Team Rubicon Resident-Mitigation Project Labeled as Huge Success
Rick Langenberg
Green Mountain Falls is no stranger to disasters from colossal snow storms and floods to horrific fires and road carnage.
If you live and socialize in GMF, be prepared for the worst when traveling across its rough and tumble gravel network, where vehicles and delivery trucks often get stuck.
And in recent months, the problems associated with tree nuisances and wildfire scares has echoed across town in increased volume, as a fire mitigation committee tries to mobilize residents towards reaching a common goal: making their properties safer.
But unfortunately, many residents don’t have the money or resources to fulfill this objective.
Through an unprecedented collaborative effort, the town finally received an outpouring of relief as the national disaster relief and humanitarian volunteer organization, Team Rubicon, arrived in late August. Through cooperation by the GMF staff and volunteer planning organizations, the team spent at least four days in GMF, cleaning up targeted properties and performing much tree mitigation work and ridding private lands of excessive vegetation. They were decked out in official gear and were spotted throughout town for several days grappling with problem properties and select areas throughout the community.
Their work drew comparisons to Rubicon activity in areas shattered by natural disasters.
According to their website, the team is a “veteran-led humanitarian organization, built to serve global communities before, during and after disasters and crises. For us, no operation is too large or small. We go where disaster strikes, helping the people that need us most, in the moments they need us most.”
And in the last several years, GMF has not been lacking in disastrous events, although 2024 has been tamer than past summer seasons.
They were stationed at the Church in the Wildwood, which served as the group’s command center. “It was a real honor to host them,” said Darlene Avery, the pastor at the Church in the Wildwood, and a Red Cross worker herself. She said some of the church members were recipients of the free work provided and were grateful for the help they received. A visible sign, displayed at the church entrance, pretty much captured the theme of gratitude for their work.
Altogether, it is estimated that the value of the work provided by Team Rubicon exceeded the $25,000 level. “It was fairly significant,” said David Douglas, chairman of the town’s Fire Mitigation Committee, which has taken a lead role in an ambitious campaign to make GMF safer from wildfire threats and to develop evacuation plans. Douglas, who addressed the board of trustees at a recent meeting, said the group’s mission was to tackle problem areas from the mitigation planning stages to project execution.
More than 30 Rubicon team members participated in the disaster relief project in GMF. The properties chosen for the work was based on earlier interest expressed by property owners, who sought mitigation relief, but didn’t have the resources or physical ability to do the needed work themselves.
Mayor Todd Dixon labeled the project as a huge success, and hopes it sets the stage for more operations by Team Rubicon in GMF, which doesn’t have a shortage of disaster-prone properties and areas. “From everything I have heard, it went very well. They did work all over town. Hopefully, they will be back.”
In addition, the mayor hopes the mitigation work will serve as a catalyst for other residents to jump on the mitigation bandwagon.
He also sees the recent Rubicon project as a good exercise for the town and church, which serves as a Red Cross shelter. Several trustees and community leaders served on the Rubicon team. An appreciation meal to benefit team members was held at Farm Stand and funded by an anonymous doner, who paid for special meals for the team, provided by the Cantina Verde restaurant.
Mitigation celebrations can’t last too long in GMF.
It’s no secret that Green Mountain Falls is one of the top spots in the region, when it comes to wildfire dangers due to its abundance of diseased trees and excessive vegetation, and its location.
The town endured a scary time during the Waldo Canyon fire and underwent a lengthy evacuation period.
Since then, it has been ravaged at times by storms and natural disasters. Some sections of town have nearly been cut off by floods.
Getting Help From the Feds
Currently, the mayor says the town is seeking more than $300,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Authority. Their effort has already been okayed by state authorities and could pave the way for major road damage preventive work, such as establishing nearly 100 culverts.
If the town can get more funds for preventive work, then it won’t have to constantly get in the role of doing constant reactive, emergency repairs, noted the mayor. Dixon says the town has been hampered in the past by having to do reconstructive road work.
For this year, the mayor is cautiously optimistic regarding the limited carnage the roads have encountered. “They seem to be holding up better,” said the mayor.
But he cautioned that GMF has not experienced the constant storm invasions that it had in 2023. To date, the town has only gotten hit by one major storm, but that one was a doozy causing mini-mountain holes and ruts in certain roadways.
