Ogden holds Practice Emergency Meeting

These men, (bottom to top), Scott Magin, Steve Leuchtner and Tim Barber, are part of the group that worked in the communications room, providing phone and radio updates on the simulated storm situations in the town of Ogden to the Emergency Response Team.

The Emergency Response Team showed a lot of intensity in dealing with various areas of concern arising from the (simulated) ice storm in Ogden. Seated are Shawn Fitzgerald, Doug Nordquist, Gay Lenhard, Dave Widger, Richard Mogab and Brian Krywy.

Ogden holds Practice Emergency Meeting
Q: What would we do if there was a sleet storm?

"It's 8:30 a.m. on a Tuesday (later described as a school day). There's been an early morning light drizzle which has become freezing rain; there are 2-6 inches of snow on the ground. Trees are down, power failures have occurred and the fire department is already out and working."

That's the scenario described to a key group of players by Bill Hallinan, chief controller and facilitator for the event, at the Emergency Planning and Exercise meeting held at the Ogden Highway Department Building on Saturday, December 3. He stressed that this was a functional exercise.

After an 8 a.m. start with a description of the morning's program and introductions of about 50 participants (players, controller, facilitator, simulators, evaluators and observers), Jeff Tewksbury, emergency manager for the Town of Ogden and Village of Spencerport, gave all assembled the details of the exercise. There would be a simulated weather disaster in the Ogden area and the players would be reacting to the reports of the situation as they were fed in through restricted phone lines. They would document and record events as they happened in real time using only the people in attendance and there would be a 20 minute critique at the end of the one and one-half hour session.

Bill Hallinan, chief controller and facilitator, separated the initial player group into two groups - a small action group, to start, consisting of the town supervisor, Ogden highway superintendent, police chief and emergency manager in the Emergency Control Center and another group which went into a communications area to interface with incoming phone and radio messages from "the field," actually pretyped messages of problems that could occur, given the dangerous weather conditions defined.

8:45 a.m. - Radio calls are coming in: vehicle accidents are happening, some description of overall damage in the area is provided. A video display of a television news report indicates wide-spread storm damage with a weather forecast of a blizzard tomorrow.

9:00 a.m. - The control room is buzzing with additional people and lots of communication going on. More damage reports coming in. School buses have stopped running. A television news reporter interviews Spencerport Mayor Ted Walker: "There is a feeling of pressure. We are making sure we communicate with all the people involved. It seems like chaos but it's what really happens. I'm here to coordinate and help make decisions."

9:17 a.m. - Ogden Town Supervisor Gay Lenhard declares a state of emergency exists in Ogden and Mayor Ted Walker declares the same for the Village of Spencerport. All roads are closed except for emergency traffic.

9:20 a.m. - A large tree is blocking the road at 80 Helmar.

9:22 a.m. - The schools are notified all roads are closed.

9:24 a.m. - Tewksbury reviews the status: It's a five-county disaster. Jack Crooks states that because of the widespread weather pattern, we are not going to get a lot of outside help anytime soon.

9:30 a.m. - The noise level in the Control Center has gone way up from the many phone and personal discussions. Concerns are raised about housing and sheltering the sick and elderly.

9:33 a.m. - The Spencerport School reported that about 4,000 students will stay at the school, including any parents who came to pick up their children. There is concern about what happens if the stay is prolonged. The Spencerport Fire Department is very concerned about trees down and the possibility of live electrical wires present. Where can we shelter people; should we be contacting churches? The ambulance service is bogged down with calls; oxygen is needed for a patient on Whittier Road. There's a report of a robbery at a local gas station.

9:43 a.m. - The latest weather report indicates the icing situation will stay awhile; more snow is coming. The Red Cross rep is introduced; a priest from St. John the Evangelist Church indicates they can provide some shelter.

10:09 a.m. - The police chief reviews the status: The freezing rain has stopped; conditions are improving. The main concern is that although the schools can provide shelter for about 2,000 people, they have no emergency generators. There are reports of multiple car accidents, people trapped in cars, some people are coming to the Community Center for shelter. The EMS service is looking for shelter space but is concerned about how they can transport the people. Another school, the second, has lost power; they are hoping they can transport the students home. The village is keeping Main Street open; they are trying to find out the location of people with medical problems; can the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) help?

Gay Lenhard asks who is the coordinator for the school buses; how can they get the drivers to the school? The town is working with the Red Cross to shelter some people at the Ogden Community Center.

10:20 a.m. - A five minute break signals the end of the emergency exercise.

10:25 a.m. - Bill Hallinan calls for comments from around the table. How was communication going, how was resource management going?

The responses:

Radio Communications - Things went well. Only two radio channels were used for this exercise, more would be used in a real situation.
Schools - We need to do a similar exercise.
Fire Department - We need to have a separate coordinator at the fire department and ask for help from other areas sooner. We also need a list of emergency electricity needs for persons with a disability.
EMS - We need a central person to collect information. We also need better information on the availability of shelters.
Highway Department - We need to contact other school districts in the area with a contact person identified. Everything else went smoothly owing to previous experience.
Police - We are not an island out here; we need to reach out to the county for resources.
Town - Communications were good, a real positive. Everyone needs to know what's going on. We have good professional people who know what to do.
Village - The village government is not necessarily trained to do emergency management but we have people who can do the job. Mayor Ted Walker also raised an issue about how to better communicate with the public.

There was some discussion about shelters and peripherals, such as space available, emergency generators, kitchen facilities, etc. It was pointed out that the schools have provision for emergency lighting only and that around half of the students live outside Ogden.

11 a.m. - The exercise is officially over; everyone applauds.

According to Jeff Tewksbury, the critiques from this exercise are due back by January 13. An Emergency Planning Committee meeting will be held in February to review the critiques and present action items. This will be followed up with a couple of tabletop exercises, one in the spring and one in the fall, involving about twenty people.

Some of the people involved at this meeting, and their affiliation, in no particular order: Fred Seiler (Spencerport School District), John Gilley (Communications), Bill Hallinan (Chief Controller and Facilitator, Gay Lenhard (Town of Ogden), Dave Widger (Ogden Highway Department), Doug Nordquist (Ogden Police), John Crooks (CERTS), Joe Muniz, Terry Brown and Brian Krywy (Spencerport Fire Department), Richard Mogab (Spencerport Ambulance), Ted Walker (Village of Spencerport), Leighton Jones (Red Cross), Shawn Fitzgerald (Ogden Police Department) and Jeff Tewksbury (Emergency Manager, Town of Ogden and Village of Spencerport). Walter Horylev represented Westside News Inc. at the exercise.