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April 2005                                                                            Volume 8 - Number 3

    

 

Perspectives...

     

 


 

Small Town Preparedness: My Experience

By: Jeffrey Goldberg

 

Tompkins County is home to educational institutions such as Ithaca College and Cornell University as well as hundreds of business and residents. This town which sees a population increase from 100,000 to over 130,000 people when school is in session. For years Tompkins County and the City of Ithaca have not considered themselves except from disasters both natural and manmade. The long commute from any major city gives residents a sense of security that local Emergency Managers do not share. This is because Cornell and Ithaca Colleges draw students from all around the world and boast high profile research activates such as a nuclear research reactor. The program goal was an “emergency management exercise to test the activities of county government, local government, private, voluntary, and not for profit agencies in response to a simulated NBC/WMD event.”1

 

I was very fortunate to have been selected for a role as an evaluator, which allowed me to see the entire exercise from a neutral role. For anybody that has worked on large scale disaster you can appreciate the dealings that each agency has with one another. It is complex system of insuring efficiently without interfering with another agencies role. On September 3rd, 2003 after 1 year of planning by the Tompkins County Emergency Management Group the exercise commenced. For most responders this was there first attempt at working around agencies that they might not deal with otherwise. For Emergency Managers, this exercise was a chance to test each experience each others strengths and understand there limitations. It was also a chance to prove to State and Federal Agencies that small towns do have a risk and that they can be ready to respond.

 

For the 16 local agencies that partook were evaluated on the following. 2

1. Initial Notification of response agencies and response personnel.

2. Direction and Control

3. Incident Assessment

4. Resource Management

5. Communications

6. Facilities, equipment, and displays

7. Alert and notification of the public

8. Emergency Information – Media

9. Protective actions for the public

10. Response personnel safety

11. Traffic and Access control

12. Registration, screening, and decontamination of public

13. Congregate care

14. Emergency Medical Services

15. Containment and cleanup

16. Incident documentation and investigation

 

The most notable thing for me that I observed during this exercise were that small towns do lack certain essential resources that big cities have available to them. However small towns do not lack interagency relationships as they are very personal and formed both on calls and through personal interaction.  I do believe that Ithaca is somewhat unique in there large scale planning as it takes years of foresight and patients. This exercise was made possible by funding from FEMA. Had FEMA not granted this money to the county the exercise would have likely never have occurred. My experience with this type of disaster planning was very positive and the press coverage insured that local residents saw there friends and responders exercising sceneries we all hope will never be need.

 

 

1. VanBenschoten, Guy J., Purpose Statement Emergency Management Exercise.

http://www.bangsambulance.com/wmd/Sept2003ExerciseDocs/statementofpurpose.pdf 2003

 

2. Tompkins County Emergency Management Group. Evaluation Handbook ver. 2.0.,

http://www.bangsambulance.com/wmd/Sept2003ExerciseDocs/EvaluationPlan.pdf