Disaster Preparedness - Talk Is Cheap

What’s been proven with Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Irene along the eastern coast and Hurricane Sandy in the northeast is that local governments, right on up through the state and the federal governments, are not capable of handling emergencies well, if at all! The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is little more than a “front” for the federal government. Their “help” is nothing more than pointing victims to someone else for assistance. Does this sound like any Town Supervisor we know? They, and our politicians, get repeated publicity and in the end, the victims get little or no help at all. We’re reminded of former President Reagan’s famous quote, “I’m from the government and I'm here to help.”

Many in emergency services are used to responding and attacking anything from a small, single incident to something of a larger magnitude, including mass casualty incidents. The Fire Service trains in the routine tasks of hooking up to a hydrant to dealing with hazardous chemical spills. The EMS Service spends time learning to ask the right questions to ascertain whether aid is even needed. 

The emergency services organizations need to be prepared for any type of emergency. Our Town leadership should also be participating and leading the way. Sadly, they’d rather talk about it than actually do something about it. Last year the Town paid a hefty fee to have Jonathan Raser, to work with Police Chief DeCarlo, to develop a Greenburgh Hazard Mitigation Plan. It was adopted (and paid for) only for us to learn it is merely a vehicle to allow the Town to apply for grant money. 

There are several phases to a disaster that include Mitigation, Preparation, Response, and Recovery. This is the order to address emergency planning as well as infrastructure improvements as they relate to flooding, power outages, resident relocation, etc., if and when the Town choses to address our suffering residents during the yearly “100-Year” storms. Our Town Board is anxious to discuss doing something without actually implementing any improvements. Talk is cheap, isn’t it?

Mitigation is considered activities that either prevent the occurrence of an emergency and/or reduce a community’s vulnerability in ways that minimize the adverse impact of a disaster or other emergency. Most communities have done little mitigation in preparation for an upcoming weather event. This was never more apparent in Greenburgh with the onslaught we received from Hurricane Sandy. Individually, many first responders and their departments handled it well. Conversely, many of our respective Greenburgh communities were paralyzed and unable to effectively receive aid. Residents abandoned? No quite. Thankfully, The Paul never missed a beat sending out emails, especially to those offline with no power.

Consolidated Edison, our “private” public service utility was understaffed to respond to all the incidents that befell them. The operational economics constraining ConEd cause them to not have enough staff to address events the magnitude of a hurricane. How should we get past their staffing issues? The Paul knew a Citizens Committee meeting at Town Hall to “bash” ConEd wouldn’t really do anything, but it would make him seem to care. Ah, publicity. Everyone uses ConEd and no one likes paying their bill, so who wouldn’t want to “go after” the big bad utility company? Pure genius. If you insist on a quicker response from ConEd, with more workers, be prepared to pay higher rates!

The Preparation phase involves activities undertaken in advance of an emergency. Response or Normal Operational phase consists of developing and revising disaster plans and hazard analyses; writing operational mutual aid plans; cross training response personnel to wear one or more of any “hats” as dictated by the event; improving public information and communications systems; and conducting exercises (drills) to validate the planning process. Putting all of these together into an implementable plan is all well and good, but if it is never tested before an actually event, it might ultimately be worthless. As with any critique after this testing, it is imperative that the leadership recognizes and honestly evaluates performances. Simply congratulating everyone so the practice appears good on paper will be self-defeating when it comes time to engage during an event. We often see this kind of “atta-boy” backslapping at Town Board meetings, when they fall over each other, becoming a mutual admiration society. 

An increased “readiness” (pre-planning) is also critical before an incident happens. Inspections of critical facilities must be performed and categorized. Reviewing and updating emergency plans and Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines (SOP/SOGs) should be an ongoing exercise for all Town personnel - not just emergency responders. This should enable them to have increased operating knowledge, familiarity of what is expected by different roles they may be asked to perform, an ability to enhance their performance. Equally important will be their ability to critique the operation to offer a different perspective to assist in making improvements. This personnel should also be updating resource lists and becoming increasingly familiar with mobilizing resources, testing warning and communications systems, disseminating accurate, timely, emergency public information as well as recruiting additional personnel and disaster service workers from the community, such as Citizen Emergency Response Teams (C.E.R.T.).

Responding to a disaster will require actions be taken to save lives and protect property first and foremost. From there, other steps must be taken, including disseminating warnings to be issued, emergency public information to be broadcast, and other advice and action instructions to be conveyed to the public. Perhaps dispatching teams to distribute information will be all that is needed. Leaders will need to have boots on the ground surveying and evaluating the emergency situation. ABG has suggested the Town utilize neighborhood civic associations as well as the CERT members for this task. With information at hand, they will be marshaling, allocating, and positioning personnel and equipment and mobilizing necessary resources. If available, they will need to activate their Emergency Operations Center (EOC) using established guidelines. 

Evacuating the public from certain areas prone in communities that suffer may be necessary and need to be implemented in stages for large areas or restricted access areas. In low lying, flood prone areas for example, conditions may be static, necessitating no changes for those people. Or, those same conditions may change swiftly and require decisions that had been contemplated by not initiated to take effect. All personnel should be well versed in what will be required of them to assist in those actions. During Hurricane Sandy for instance, residents were evacuated to the Theodore Young Center, only to need to be evacuated from there due to storm related damage.

During the immediate emergency, emphasis must be placed on saving lives, gaining as much control of the situation as can be controlled and minimize the effects of the disaster to both the public and the responders. Once an Incident Command Post has been established, they can work in or with the EOC. Of course, sustained or long-term events/emergencies may dictate what else must be done. Providing for the care and treatment of casualties, collecting, identifying, and addressing the deceased, are part of the gruesome reality that must be planned for. During that same period, providing for the mass care with food, lodging, clean clothes, hygiene needs of displaced persons becomes a priority. During the Hurricane Sandy, the Village of Elmsford highway department distributed firewood collected from fallen trees, to residents to burn in their fireplaces. It allowed homeowners with fireplaces to heat their homes and dispose of the wood at no cost! 

Once the recovery process is underway, our people or other appropriate agencies must begin implementing health and safety measures for both the short and long term. Additionally, you must begin protecting, controlling, and allocating vital resources; restoring or activating essential facilities and systems, ensuring the enforcement of police powers in controlling the locations and finally, establishing access controls, erecting traffic barricades, etc.

We do know that with proper planning, evaluation and activation addressing everything that is going on should provide a more organized and less chaotic environment for all. Ultimately, it will assist the victims with a level of calm and security during an extremely stressful event. We don’t currently have a pre-plan for major events and hope this article helps guide our leaders in the right direction toward starting one. We can be ready for the next event. We can only hope.