Port Ludlow Emergency Committee
Frequently asked questions
Plain answers about Block Captains, volunteering, and how this site works. If yours isn't here, the Chair is one email away.
Port Ludlow Emergency Committee
Plain answers about Block Captains, volunteering, and how this site works. If yours isn't here, the Chair is one email away.
A volunteer committee of the Port Ludlow Village Council. Its job is to organise neighbors so the village can look after itself in the first days after a major earthquake or storm, before outside help arrives. The committee members are listed on the home page.
A trained neighbor — someone from your own street. After a disaster they check that neighbors are safe, note who needs help, and pass that picture by two-way radio to a community communication center, which relays it on to Jefferson County. They are not first responders — they are the first people to know whether your street is all right.
Into 38 response neighborhoods, each divided into Response Areas of roughly 10 to 20 homes. The aim is a Block Captain for every one of them.
Phones and internet may be down and roads may be blocked. Block Captains check their own streets, then pass what they find by radio to a community communication center. That picture — which streets are fine, which need help — goes on to Jefferson County, so the limited help that exists goes where it is needed first.
Type your street name into the search box on the home page. You can leave the house number off.
Check the spelling, or try just the street name on its own. Some outlying areas — Paradise Bay, Olympus Beach, Mats Mats, Tala Shores and Bridgehaven — are outside the Port Ludlow Block Captain program. Still stuck? Email PLEC.Chair@gmail.com and we'll find it for you.
Because our volunteers' names and email addresses are not published as a directory for the whole internet to copy. The lookup shows you the captain for the street you search — your own — and nothing more. There's more on this on the privacy page.
Some areas are open — they're listed on the home page. Until someone steps up, contact the Chair with anything you'd normally ask a captain. And if you'd consider taking it on yourself, that's exactly where help is needed most.
Send the short form on the home page and the Chair will follow up. Before you decide anything, the orientation video is public — plenty of people watch it, think about it, and decide it's not for them. That's a perfectly good outcome.
The orientation video plus a handful of short modules, tracked on your training page. Some are watched online; others — like a tabletop exercise or radio practice — happen in person and are recorded for you. If you watch a video, sign in first so it counts.
After the initial training, the ongoing commitment is mostly knowing your street and taking part in the occasional exercise, such as the Great ShakeOut each October.
Washington's statewide earthquake drill, held every October. PLEC takes part each year — and if you're away or unwell on the day, letting us know counts as taking part.
Volunteers sign in with a six-digit code emailed to them, which expires after 15 minutes. There is nothing to remember and nothing to steal.
Check your spam folder first. The code only goes to the email address PLEC has on file for you — if you've started using a different address, email the Chair and we'll update it.
You can update your own name, email, phone number and address: sign in and they are under Your details. A new email address is confirmed with a code we send to it first, because it is also how you sign in — until you type that code back, nothing changes. The committee is let know when you change anything, so a new address can be matched to the right Response Area. If something there cannot be changed or does not look right, email the Chair. To step down, you can do it yourself in the "Stepping down?" section on the home page — enter your email, type back the code we send, and you're off the roster in a minute. Stepping down is always fine — telling us is what matters, so your street isn't counted as covered when it isn't.
Very little, and none of it is sold or shared beyond the committee. The privacy page spells it out.
Email the Chair at PLEC.Chair@gmail.com — real questions from residents are how this page grows.