Preparedness Drill Helps Town Reinforce Best Emergency Practices

By John Voket

Newtown was among the 165 state municipalities and Indian tribal communities participating in a four-day statewide emergency preparedness drill that Governor Dannel P. Malloy says helped promote planning and preparation.

Several Newtown officials and members of their various departments participated July 30 and 31, while other participating communities and agencies conducted simulations July 28 and 29 or over the course of all four days. The exercise was designed to simulate a hurricane and focused on improving communications among communities and state agencies.

Municipalities organized first-ever multitown shelters, including one that would have served the more than 1,000 Newtown residents that were displaced by the mock storm. Officials locally and statewide also established road-clearing practices, and the state rolled out a new process to streamline requests for food, water, and cots.

Another new system was used to share information between municipalities, utilities, and state agencies. Newtown’s Emergency Operations Center at Fairfield Hills was buzzing with activity all four days because it served as an operations base for ham radio operators who proved to be a lifeline of communication when all other networks were down or compromised.

In one instance, Emergency Communications Director Maureen Will said ham operators used their radios to dispatch e-mail “injects” or orders injecting constantly changing pre- and post-storm scenarios that local officials had to handle as though the storm was occurring.

During a simulated press conference near the end of the drill July 31, Public Works Director Fred Hurley said the drill simulated a hurricane and resulting fallout three times more powerful than the rogue snowstorm that hit the state last October leaving thousands in Newtown, and elsewhere, without power, some for more than a week.

Among the participants locally were a Connecticut Light & Power liaison, local water company workers, volunteer ambulance, communications, and fire personnel, the Newtown Public Works and Police Departments, the town’s information technology office, and the Newtown Health District

Gov Malloy on Tuesday said the four-day statewide emergency preparedness drill “brought all of the state’s partners together to prepare for the types of storms and other emergencies that are inevitable but whose impact we have a responsibility to try to counteract in the most efficient way possible.”

The governor said most importantly, that the drill focused on fostering better communications among the many parties involved.

“The double-barreled storms that devastated our state last summer and fall made it clear that we needed a better blueprint for coordinating a timely, effective response between all of those involved,” Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman added. “While we still may have work to do, this exercise is a significant step forward toward our goal of making Connecticut’s infrastructure and preparation second to none.”

The exercise was scheduled over a four-day period to allow towns with volunteer staff to choose to participate on the weekend, and towns with paid staff to participate on weekdays in order to reduce costs. Newtown will be among the municipalities receiving a $1,200 stipend for participation.

New Protocols Tested

According to the governor’s office, this exercise tested a number of new preparedness structures, policies, and protocols that were put in place after the two storms. In response to concerns raised by communities that areas of storm impact were inaccessible for extended periods of time because of downed wires, a new “Make Safe” road clearing protocol has been established.

The protocol was used by municipal, state, and utility road clearing crews in 20 towns during the exercise. As part of the “Make Safe” protocol, power utilities have committed to providing crews to each affected town after a severe storm.

The new “Make Safe” procedures were also exercised over the weekend at the New England Disaster Training Center. The state’s volunteer Urban Search And Rescue Team participated with CL&P as well as local first responders and volunteers to test the State Fire Response Plan using a pre-hurricane tornado scenario that included simulated downed wires.

 In order to speed up delivery of commodities to municipalities, a new streamlined process for requests for items such as food, water, and cots has been created and tested by all towns during the exercise.

 The successful Task Force structure that was established during last year’s storms has been codified and enhanced. The exercise tested these groups to ensure streamlined and coordinated communications, so that resources will be allocated where they are most needed.

Task Forces included: Mass Care; Debris Management; Commodity Distribution; Fuel/Generators; Evacuation; Joint Energy and Communications Restoration; Water; Donations Management; and, Recovery.

The drill exercised the new All-Hazards Energy and Utilities Annex, which outlines for the first time a formal information flow between municipalities, utilities, and state agencies. The annex includes a process for embedding cable and telecommunications representatives in power utility Emergency Operations Centers so that problems can be addressed in a more timely manner, allowing for quicker utility restoration.

In Newtown, CL&P liaison Jacqui Borges-King was on hand, as she was during the 2011 storms. The annex also for the first time details the type of information that must be provided by utilities to municipalities and the State Emergency Operations Center.

During the coming weeks, the state Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (DEMHS) will begin conducting a full after-action review of the exercise with all those involved to identify strengths and areas for improvement. The results will be used to continue planning, preparedness, and exercise work moving forward.

Participants in the exercise at the state level included the relevant state agencies; the state’s municipalities and tribal nations; utility companies (CL&P, United Illuminating, AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, Charter, Cox and MetroCast); the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the Red Cross; United Way 211; and representatives of the private sector.

Local Response Reinforced

Ms Will said that Newtown officials were more secure coming out of the drill, after using a greatly expanded network to communicate information, including a Code Red reverse 911 call to participating residents; several A-frame signs posted at strategic intersections with simulated evacuation and shelter information; flyers, posters, added information on the town’s website; and a simulated press conference.

The town’s IT Director Scott Sharlow and his staff also worked to address related injects that imposed various and complete IT failures, and the official is now exploring obtaining a grant to acquire a teleconferencing system that could be tied into the town website to provide live, real time updates from officials during a real emergency.

“Now we’re much more comfortable with what we’re doing,” Ms Will said. She said the addition of a Citizen’s Emergency Response Team (CERT), which is due to be activated soon, will add valuable volunteer personnel trained to assist with communications and shelter management, among other duties.

But Ms Will was most impressed by the collaboration and teamwork that occurred as injects — many that were very involved or challenging — rolled in about every half-hour.

“Cooperation in the war room was phenomenal,” she said of her colleagues who worked in the EOC’s conference area. “I’m proud to be part of this team. Unless you’re there, you really don’t know how intense it can get with these injects hitting every half-hour.”

She said injects included water and sewer failures, handling response to possible damage to key bridges in town, issues at the Garner Correctional Facility and local assisted living and skilled care facilities, even how the EOC staffers would handle metering out shifts to stave off exhaustion.

On Monday, Emergency Management Director William Halstead said officials monitored the incoming storm while Police Chief Michael Kehoe was assigned an inject that indicated the eight local gasoline stations were becoming overwhelmed with traffic and residents looking to hoard gasoline.

During the mock press conference, First Selectman Pat Llodra said Highway Department trucks were to be stationed at fire stations along with ambulances or medical responders to ensure rapid response times to various outlying neighborhoods, because more than half the town’s roads were rendered impassible in the hours following the storm’s landfall.

She also said that low-lying areas in town prone to flooding were also targeted for specific evacuation warnings and procedures. Although there was a contingency for mass evacuations to a regional shelter in Bethel, officials locally also evaluated the high school and the municipal center for those seeking temporary shelter, or a place to socialize, get information, and to charge electronic devices.

Local facilities like Masonicare were also on alert and made space available in the event medically fragile individuals needed a place to stay during evacuations.