Disaster. An occurrence or imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from any natural, technological or human-made cause including fire, flood, earthquake, windstorm, wave action, oil spill or other contamination, radioactive incident, epidemic, air contamination, blight, drought, infestation, explosion, riot, hostile or paramilitary action, or structure failure of a dam, building or infrastructure, or other public calamity requiring emergency action.

Emergency. Any human-made, technological or natural event or circumstance causing or threatening loss of life, injury to persons or property, human suffering or financial loss including but not limited to fire, explosion, flood, severe weather, drought, earthquake, volcanic activity, spills or releases of petroleum products or other hazardous material, contamination, utility or transportation emergencies, disease, blight, infestation, civil disturbance, riot, sabotage and war.

State of Emergency. A situation which involves an emergency or a disaster.

(a) The city manager may declare a state of emergency when:

(b) Prior to declaring a state of emergency, the city manager shall contact, or at a minimum use all reasonable efforts to attempt to contact, the mayor and the city councilors to seek their input about declaring a state of emergency. If the city manager is unable to contact a majority of the councilors, then the city manager shall not declare a state of emergency unless the city manager obtains approval of the mayor or one city councilor.

(c) The city manager shall use an administrative order to declare a state of emergency. Any administrative order declaring a state of emergency shall:

(d) The city manager may request the Governor to declare a state of emergency within the city. The city manager shall submit the request as provided in state law.

(e) The city manager shall terminate the state of emergency in an administrative order when the state of emergency no longer exists or when the threat of an emergency has passed. If the Governor has declared a state of emergency within the city, the city manager shall request the Governor to terminate the declaration.

(f) The city council may repeal the city manager’s declaration of a state of emergency by majority vote.

(a) If the city manager, for any reason, is unable or unavailable to perform the duties of office under this code during a state of emergency, the duties shall be performed by the first available of those emergency interim successors designated by the city manager under section 2.1035 of this code.

(b) The powers of the emergency interim successor to the city manager shall be the same as the city manager and the duration of succession shall be until such time as the city manager is able to perform the duties of office.

(a) Designate persons to coordinate the work of public and private relief agencies operating in the area and exclude from the area, any person or agency refusing to cooperate and work under the coordinator or to coordinate with other agencies engaged in the emergency work.

(b) Regulate by rationing, freezing, use of quotas, prohibitions on shipments, price fixing, allocation or other means, the sale or distribution of food, feed, fuel, clothing and other commodities, materials, goods and services.

(c) Order the removal of debris and wreckage which may threaten the public health or safety on public or private property consistent with the provisions of section 6.010 of this code.

(d) Barricade streets and prohibit vehicular or pedestrian traffic, or regulate the same on any public street leading to the area designated as an emergency area for such distance as may be deemed necessary under the circumstances.

(e) Prohibit or limit the number of persons who may gather or congregate upon any public street, public place or any outdoor place within the area designated as an emergency area.

(f) Establish a curfew for the designated emergency area which fixes the hours during which all persons other than officially authorized personnel may not be upon the public streets or other public places.

(g) Prohibit the sale, carrying or possession of any firearms or explosives of any kind on public streets or public places.

(h) Establish rent controls and provide temporary or permanent housing by purchase, lease or otherwise and to enter into arrangements necessary to prepare or equip the living units for occupancy.

(i) Order the evacuation of persons from designated areas as necessary.

(j) Adopt rules for the expeditious issuance of permits necessary to address issues which arise from the emergency or disaster.

(k) In accordance with rules adopted under section 2.1230(5) of this code, suspend the applicable public procurement requirements.

(l) To the extent sufficient funds are available and budgeted, to redirect city funds to pay expenses incurred as a result of responding to the state of emergency.

(m) Appropriate from commercial or industrial businesses merchandise, equipment or vehicles needed to alleviate the emergency. The city shall reimburse the business within 30 days at the customary value charged for the items during the 90-day period before the declaration of the state of emergency. Nothing in Section 2.1055 authorizes the city to take an individual’s personal property (including food or other goods).