Chaffee County Declares “Local Disaster Emergency”

Chaffee County Commissioners have declared a Local Disaster Emergency due to the Coronavirus. 

Colorado law provides for declaring a local disaster emergency to assist local governments in responding to and recovering from an emergency event, including epidemics. 

The declaration states that the Chaffee County Public Health department has authority to establish and enforce isolation and quarantine, to exercise physical control over property and over people within the jurisdiction of the agency for the protection of the public health and has the authority to close schools and public places and to prohibit gatherings of people when necessary. 

The Director of the Office of Emergency Management has full authority to assign county personnel duties not in their job descriptions, expend financial resources, suspend and re-assign any county operations to provide full support to the emergency response. 

Public events scheduled to take place in county owned facilities are suspended until further notice. 

     The Chaffee County community is strongly directed to engage in social distancing and to postpone or cancel any gatherings or events where people congregate in large numbers or are in close contact with one another. 

     County buildings will remain open as normally scheduled.