Jill Schramm/MDN Liaison Committee Chair Mark Jantzer speaks during discussion on a resilience assessment at the committee’s meeting Thursday in Minot City Hall.

Minot has been selected for a free disaster emergency resilience assessment.

Ward County Emergency Manager Kelly Haugan told the local government liaison committee Thursday that an assessment would include not only the government but would involve businesses, religious groups, volunteer groups and others. U.S. Homeland Security is the lead agency in Region 8, headquartered in Colorado, conducting the assessment process.

In talking to different agencies, evaluators would determine where there’s gaps in recovery, Haugan said. The assessment would show how resilient each of the agencies are and the priority that exists in getting each of them back on their feet quickly.

“This is going to benefit not only the city of Minot. They picked the city of Minot because it’s the county seat and it’s the largest populated, but this report will benefit all communities in Ward County,” Haugan said.

The City of Minot has yet to formally accept participation in the assessment. Council member Mark Jantzer, liaison committee chairman, said he sees no reason not to participate. Council and liaison committee member Lisa Olson agreed.

“We’ve had some community disasters in our community that our staff have learned from, but there’s always an opportunity to learn more,” she said. “This just seems like a helpful tool.”

Haugan said the assessment would bring a number of people to the table to get to know each other and their roles before a disaster strikes.

He also said a similar assessment in a Wyoming county produced information that enabled the schools in the county to successfully apply for grants to obtain backup generators. A benefit of the assessment is its analyses providing justification for requests for improvements, which can be inserted directly into grant applications, he said. The final report also lists available grants.

The interview process with community leaders would be expected to occur between January and May. Once the report is written, a presentation of the results would occur, likely around September, Haugan said. A written report would be delivered a couple of months later.

Haugan said he would coordinate any interviews associated with the project.