A group of county residents are asking Park County Commissioners to consider a proposal to store three months worth of staple foods in order to be prepared for a potential emergency they see potentially occurring in the relatively near future.

On Tuesday, county residents Larry French and Larry Dodge shared with commissioners a proposal costing a little more than $663,000 to set up that would store oats, wheat, corn and beans in silos on county property that could be distributed to all roughly 30,000 county residents if needed.

“We believe there’s going to be a very real need for this in the near future,” Dodge said. “The government’s been warning us about this all year, due to the supply shortage, high price of fertilizer, high price of fuel and the cost of maintenance.”

Dodge said grocery stores would empty out in three days if trucks stopped moving due to a fuel shortage or strike. He also mentioned how many farmers are planting fewer crops, cattle ranchers are not able to run as many cattle due to drought and poultry has been killed in the tens of millions due to avian influenza. Dodge said there have also been more than 100 attacks on the power grid in the last year according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Our economy is on the verge of collapse,” he said. “Due to the conditions in this nation Homeland Security is telling people they should have at least three months of food and water on hand.”

After questions by commissioners, French said a nonprofit board made up of a variety of county residents would best administer the program.

Commissioners said they would talk to Park County Homeland Security Director Jeff Martin about the proposal to get his thoughts and see if it’s been done before.

“Are we reinventing the wheel or is there something similar?” Commissioner Lee Livingston asked. “I mean, I know it’s grain storage. We store a whole lot of grain around this country. But in this I, as far as an emergency food storage, are there others out there?”

The men said they hadn’t heard of any others — which they said could be because other towns don’t want that to be known — but they could look into that.

Commissioner Scott Mangold noted a possible issue if it was known Park County had food in an emergency and other places did not, which could swell the population.

Another supporter of the plan, Boone Tidwell, said an influx could be balanced out by others wanting to leave for a bigger city in an emergency, and Andris Vaskis added that as Park County has relatively few roads in and out, an influx could be halted if necessary.

French said to improve security they felt it would be best to be in one location and suggested county property, such as the shop buildings outside of town which are ringed by fencing.

A number of the commissioners expressed support for the idea but wanted to know more details on how it would work after speaking with Martin, including what the recurring costs would be to manage silos. Chair Dossie Overfield said there would also be a solution as to how the food would be sold each year and replenished by purchasing new crops.

Mangold added that it would be important not to compete with private business in purchasing from local farmers.

The commodities were chosen because all four when cooked provide the recommended 1,500 calories per day per 1 pound, which equates to 15 tons per day for all 30,000 residents. Dodge said they’ve talked with a number of churches and other organizations who could be part of distributing the food as food pantries if the need arose. He said they’d also be willing to teach people how to cook the raw ingredients, a skill he said many people have forgotten.

Commissioners said they would speak to Martin about the proposal next week.