Choctaw Nation
Kelsey Brown
DURANT – As COVID-19 cases and holiday travel increase in the area, the Choctaw Nation Emergency Management is delivering pallets of free masks across the Nation’s jurisdiction to try and reduce the spread of coronavirus.
The Choctaw Nation Emergency Management team received 582,000 washable, cloth face masks from FEMA and is delivering the masks to southeastern Oklahoma county offices for public distribution. Each county devised a plan to distribute the masks including public pick up at retail locations and non-profits, or scheduling drive-through events at emergency management offices.
“The masks have been received enthusiastically by everyone. In all, we distributed about 18,000 masks in the first week and are going to do a second push next week. There are approximately 16,000 residents in Durant, so we have saturated the city pretty well,” said Kenneth Eppler, emergency manager of the city of Durant.
For more information regarding free mask pick up locations, please contact your county emergency management office.