Photo courtesy of Ryan Murray
Justin Needles is a long time resident of Carbon County and is proud of his deep roots in the Castle Country. Emergency response has been at the core of his career since the early 2000s, and recently received the SBA Phoenix Award for Disaster Recovery for his efforts.
Carbon County’s Ryan Murray, known for his work leading the local Small Business Development Center, originally nominated Needles in 2017, but he was not selected. Murray recently received a letter from the Small Business Administration (SBA), encouraging him to nominate Needles again for the 2018 award, to which he was the recipient for the State of Utah.
Needles began his long-time career in emergency response when he was hired by the Manti La-Sal National Forest office as a wildland firefighter in 2002. Since then, he has worked for the State of Utah Division of Forestry and State Lands as the Carbon/Emery District Fire Warden, Carbon County Ambulance and Price City Fire Department, where he received Firefighter l and ll certifications, HAZMAT operations training and Fire Service Instructor certification.
In January of 2016, Needles took over as the Carbon County Emergency Manager.
Needles’ preparedness was tested when severe flooding struck the county on Sept. 22, 2016. He took quick, decisive action to establish communication with local officials and support services and established an emergency operation center and started deploying resources based on need. He was instrumental in creating teams to go out and assess the damage and needs of the local citizens and establishing a Red Cross center.
Despite the flooding in his own basement, Needles made the people in the county his priority, spending the next 48 hours with little rest as he helped others.
One of the areas hit hardest by the flood was Wellington. Needles has since been working on future plans for Wellington, which include seeking grant funding to manage river flow and expand the flood plain. Already, 1,800 feet of the river has been reworked and the work will continue throughout the summer, including increasing the size of many culverts and cleaning out culverts that are full of silt.
Needles continues to help local residents recover from flooding back in 2016, sharing information for national flood insurance programs, directing people to their local credit unions about low interest loan programs and taking part ongoing community meetings.
Needles is committed to his community and aims to keep it a great place to live.