December 29, 2009 - RALEIGH – Boy Scout founder Sir Robert Baden-Powell fully understood how vital it is to ‘be prepared’ when he created the group’s famous adage.
Baden-Powell explained, “The meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.”
That same concept is what drives the work of the N.C. Division of Emergency Management.
“Disasters start locally and end locally,” said Doug Hoell, director of DEM. “Our job is to be prepared and support those cities, counties and regions in whatever way we can through coordinated training and by providing resources to respond to and recover from a disaster.”
DEM held more than 80 classes across the state this year to train fire, rescue, law enforcement and emergency management personnel and community leaders how to respond to various types of crisis. Courses included: disaster recovery and response, mass shootings response, managing people in disasters, hazardous chemical response, managing debris after a disaster, the incident command system, handling mass fatalities, assessing damages from disasters, and managing mass care for communities.
In addition, the division helped plan, coordinate, fund and implement dozens of local or regional training exercises to give local and state agencies the opportunity to test their communication, coordination and response skills before an incident occurs. Ten of those exercises involved multiple jurisdictions and/or were conducted over several days. Others proved to be a first of their kind in the state. Some of the more notable exercises during 2009 included:
Governor’s hurricane exercise – In May, elected and appointed leaders from the Cabinet, Council of State and Governor’s Office spent a day discussing and rehearsing the roles and responsibilities of state agencies in preparing for, responding to and recovering from a major hurricane. It was the first-ever such exercise conducted for the governor’s staff.
Urban Search and Rescue training – More than 200 people from 35 agencies participated in a 30-hour exercise in Haywood County in April responding to a simulated tunnel collapse. Many of the same players used lessons learned in the training six months later to respond to a rockslide in the same area.
Earthquake exercise – State Emergency Response Team and emergency management staff from 18 counties and five colleges trained together for two days in June to review and rehearse their responsibilities to respond to a significant earthquake in this first-ever statewide exercise
Helo-Aquatic Rescue Team training – Two dozen first responder, law enforcement and medical agencies train in August with National Guard airmen for three days to practiced their ability to rescue victims by extracting them from severely flooded areas via helicopter.
Resource tracking exercise – More than 600 staff from 20 local and state agencies and non-profit organizations tested and evaluated their capability for four days in June to process and move resources and personnel in and out of the state following an emergency. The exercise served as the foundation for a national training model.
Terrorism exercise –In March, 23 local, state, federal and military agencies trained together in ‘Eastern Shield’: a three-day exercise at the state port in Morehead City in which agencies responded to terrorism threats in the county and surrounding water, responded to multiple explosions and conducted a mass decontamination.
Communications exercise – Nine piedmont counties participated in a regional communications exercise in April ensuring that law enforcement, first responders and emergency management staff can communicate easily and quickly with each other during a crisis.
Nuclear power plant exercises— Emergency management, police, fire, rescue, sheriff, highway patrol, school officials and others from the state and counties practiced their ability to notify and protect the public in the unlikely event of an incident at the Harris or McGuire nuclear power plants, with drills held in March and August respectively.
Community Emergency Response Teams training – Volunteers from various communities, including college and high school campuses, learned the basics of disaster response in courses throughout the year so they can help their neighbors in the early minutes and hours following a disaster.
Hazardous materials response training– first responders, emergency management staff and health care employees from 10 local, county and state agencies practiced responding to a school shooting and hazardous materials incident in April.
While DEM is responsible for coordinating classes and conducting exercises, its primary focus is providing support to local communities responding to disasters.
“There are three ways to learn or sharpen skills,” Hoell said. “First you study them, then you practice them and then you perform them.”
During the past year, state emergency management employees assisted with numerous search and rescue missions, including a ground search for two missing siblings in a national park and several helo-aquatic rescue missions. DEM also sent urban search and rescue crews to find and recover victims from the ConAgra plant explosion in Garner.
Employees received and then distributed the state’s initial shipments of H1N1 flu vaccine to each of the state’s 100 counties. In addition, DEM staff responded to fires at the Severn Peanut factory in Northampton County and at a tire storage facility in Chadbourne. And state emergency management staff responded to numerous other fires, chemical leaks, hazardous material spills, train car derailments and plane crashes.
When disaster does strike, the agency works with local communities to help their residents and businesses recover as quickly as possible from the event. Damage assessment teams from the county, state and sometimes federal governments inventory the destruction to determine what financial assistance may be available to help the disaster victims. This year, DEM helped residents and businesses recover from tornados in Nash, Johnson, Wake and Wilson counties; flooding in Craven and New Hanover counties, a rockslide in Haywood County and a nor’easter in Currituck and Dare counties.
DEM implemented a new program in four pilot counties Durham, Edgecombe, Macon and New Hanover to help identify potential hazards vulnerability in local buildings. Collected data will be used to assess the level of risk and probability that each facility has for being impacted by flood, tornado, hurricane or other such natural disaster. Community leaders and state officials can then plan ways to minimize risks and potential service disruptions.
In addition, the division installed stream and rain gauges in the western part of the state to alert local and state officials early to potential flooding in major river basins.
Working closely with several other state departments, the division purchased equipment to better accommodate evacuees. For instance, DEM installed 17 mass care support trailers to provide equipment for the medically fragile community so those with special medical needs can be housed in public shelters during evacuations. It purchased 15 companion animal mobile equipment trailers to enable evacuees to bring their domestic pets with them to a shelter and bought two mobile pharmacy trailers to dispense necessary medications following a disaster.
The division developed a web-based inventory of available resources for 13 northeastern counties to help it share resources in response to a disaster. DEM also developed points of distribution plans for communities to ensure that life-sustaining commodities such as food, water and tarps are distributed after disasters.
Patty McQuillan
Public Affairs
NC Dept. of Crime Control and Public Safety
