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Show Great Strides Made In Civil Defense In Year Utah's civil defense program has made great strides in effecting effect-ing a well coordinated, comprehensive compre-hensive plan of protection, according ac-cording to a report of the first year's activities, issued by Col. Alvin Sessions, deputy director Utah Civil Defense Council. The report, issued to members of the council, stresses the outstanding out-standing work already done by the Health division, which is organized or-ganized to take care of disaster problems in any section of the state. Also commended, is the Health division's plan to buy at wholesale materials for first-aid first-aid kits, which would be distributed distrib-uted through regular retail drug outlets. This plan has been copied cop-ied by a number of other states. 1 Welfare Division is completely complete-ly oranized throughout the state, with 25 counties actively participating. parti-cipating. Provisions have been made for providing mass care, with shelter, feeding and emergency emer-gency supplies, evacuation, registration reg-istration and identification, in- luimauon, ana welfare teams handling the various problems. Internal Security division is also geared for thorough, fast action, according to Col. Sessions' Ses-sions' report. A network of communications com-munications has been established, estab-lished, with alternate means-to maintain communications in the event the basic system fails. Law enforcement and fire J lighting teams are being trained. Military organizations, built around the national guard, is about 35 per cent completed. The report sees no need for excessive ex-cessive haste in this "division inasmuch as 1,100 national guard troops are still available in the state, and ample time will be available for expanding a state guard when the national guard is alerted for federal service. ser-vice. Aviation is another exceptionally exception-ally well - organized division with over 500 privately owned planes and 1,000 pilots registered. regis-tered. Complete plans for assignment assign-ment have been made. Engineering and transportation transporta-tion sections have been organized, organ-ized, but there is still oraniza-tional oraniza-tional work to be completed in the Utilities section. Col. Sessions' report pays tribute trib-ute to the role played bv the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce in enabling the defense de-fense program to be carried out with maximum economy. The Chamber has donated office space, equipment, and personnel person-nel to assist the council, and has made possible carrying out an extensive program on a minimum mini-mum budget. Weakness noted in the report are: lack of appropriations, particularly par-ticularly in the heavily populated popu-lated areas, for carrying on costs of operation; failure of county and city officials to have one of their number responsible for stimulating a vigorous program; inadequate publicity in rurl areas; and public apathy toward the need for a defense program. ' |