By Pauline Masson –
Pacific staff and aldermen deserve their self promoted accolades for approving a new – third version – of a city emergency operations plan, but they got a bit too self-congratulatory in the March city newsletter claiming that it was the “first ever.”
The first ever claim is a slight to two former mayors, who both developed, disaster response, or emergency operations plans.
In 2001, during former Alderman Rick Layton’s Safety Awareness Day on the parking lot of the then IGA store on West Osage, Mayor Jill Pigg looked around at all the emergency response agencies that wanted to show their skills and said the city needed to formalize how it responded to events that threatened citizens.
Without notes, she ticked off the city departments, policies, first responder and civic organizations that needed to be combined in a coordinated effort to deal with any disasters. She even spelled our when citizens might need assistance: floods, fires, severe weather or medical epidemics. The reporter dutifully took notes as the mayor spoke and reported her idea for a disaster plan in the local newspaper.
Mayor Pigg had her plan typed up and asked aldermen to approve it. She named Police Officer Dian Becker – who had actually lobbied for the assignment – disaster director, or emergency management director.
Following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2011, emergency management professionals across the country received new protocols and completed hundreds of hours of training to deal with disasters. Initially the program was aimed at recovering from terrorist attacks, but emergency responders, like Becker, recognized that the same responses would be effective in the aftermath of natural disasters such as storms.
In 2006, Mayor Herb Adams met with Becker to review damage from a violent storm on July 19 that downed trees and power lines and damaged building
“In the few hours immediately following the (July 19) storm, we had to take care of life and safety first,” Becker said. “We had live electric wires in the streets, sparking transformers and trees blocking access to them. These were life-threatening hazards.”
In 2008 Becker and Building Commissioner Dave Myers went door to door, ahead of the rising Meramec River, giving south-side residents three days’ notice that their neighborhoods would be inundated.
In 2009, following the 2008 flood, Mayor Adams convened a Disaster Response Advisory Committee to study the city’s response to the flood and craft a plan that would incorporate all available resources in dealing with disasters.
Bob Masson, an amateur radio operator and seasoned emergency responder, who had recently completed the CERT training program conducted by the combined Eureka Police and Fire districts, chaired the committee through a series of study sessions.
Serving on the committee with Masson were Fire Chief Rick Friedmann, Police Sgt. Dan Donnelly, Police officer Angela Downing, Meramec Ambulance District Chief Christine Neal, Alderman Carol Johnson, Building Commissioner Dave Myers, Pacific Economic Development Director Sheila Steelman, Ministerial Alliance President Rev. Stan Gibson, Pacific Park Board Member Tracy (Maher) Gullet, Citizen Genetta Tomnitz (committee secretary) and City Administrator Harold Selby.
The committee met ten times, and crafted a Disaster/Catastrophe Response and Recovery Plan. This was especially valuable because, by that time, an approved recovery plan was a requirement for cities to receive federal disaster response funds to help cities recover the cost of disaster repairs.
The committee also created a spreadsheet and timeline that reported what every city department and the fire and ambulance districts were doing at each stage of the rising water. They were following Mayor Pigg’s 2001 plan.
The City of Pacific Disaster/Catastrophe Response and Recovery Plan was presented to Mayor Adams and approved by the board of aldermen.
Along with the written plan, the committee recommended that the city hire a full-time emergency management director, enter into memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with agencies that had resources that could aid in disaster recovery, study how robo calls could be used to alert agencies and citizens of impending disasters or recovery assistance, and create a special emergency operations center (EOC) separate from public areas.
In 2011 when a severe storm sent the Meramec River out of its banks, Becker tracked the river’s rise and notified residents when water would reach each section. In 2013 she was instrumental in getting outdoor warning sirens for the city. In 2014 she conducted a weather spotting class that attracted so many interest volunteers that city hall was filled to overfloweing. Also in a 2014 ice storm, when electricity was knocked out, she sent officers door to door to individuals that she knew lived alone to check on their needs and tell them that they could come to city hall to get warm.
The school district also responded and provided a warming station at Zitzman Elementary School Gym that was manned for several days by Marigene Reed, wife of police chief Ron Reed.
In 2016 FEMA set up a Disaster Recovery Center at the Tri County Senior Center, that remained open for ten days to feed flood victims, volunteers and first responders. The Red Cross provided sleeping accommodations at the center for individuals displaced by the flood.
It was careless and unthougtful to disregard the important work of former administrations.
HAVING SAID THAT . . . there is no doubt that the latest version of the Pacific Emergency Operations Plan is more thorough and more sophisticated than the earlier plans. And it should be. The city and the entire region have more experience in dealing with emergencies and have worked to upgrade and update what was done before. Following the 9/11 terrorst attack much more federal emergency asistance was available.
The City can truthfully toot its own horn about its new emergency plan without eviscerating the work that was done before. It would have been just as easy for the city newsletter to say this new emergency operations plan carries on the work of former mayors Jill Pigg and Herb Adams.
Our city is experienced in dealing with disasters and we should be grateful that the current staffers are trying to continue that trend.
I was on a Red Cross Disaster Assistance Team from 1967 to 1976 and a paid firefighter until retirement as a Battalion Chief in 2006. I have seen and worked with several of these plans over the years and Pacific’s first two plans were right up there with the best, to the point and with little bureaucratic speak included.
The latest version, while very thorough, seems to be originally based on a FEMA ‘fill in the blanks’ boiler plate model. This may help with other agencies and Federal review but it still needs a lot of ‘local facts’ tweaking. He needs to add agreements with groups and agencies with more details than ‘ yes, we will help you’.
Some of the sections have parts from the original plans included which is good but the current administration needs to give credit to all those who came before.
Could be that the current group is just clueless about the past and think they are the first to think of anything.
Do they know we have an EOC room at City Hall or have they turned it into a storage closet?
I agree with you Pauline. Recognizing and using previous work goes a long way for continuity of operations.
I worked with Diane Becker as a volunteer behind the scenes from about January 1, 2016, to setup and manage both a city Emergency Response website and a Facebook page to get daily push information to get all sorts of city and community emergency response out to the citizens, many of whom were displaced and had only their cell phones to obtain info such as FEMA response scheduling, where they could get free cleanup supplies, obtain food and clothing at the beginning through the end of cleanup operations in early April. Diane worked her fingers, on her phone and computer, to mere nubbins for the people here. She lost enormous amounts of sleep and it was all done according to protocol of the system in place, as well as nimbly handling items that no one had anticipated.
I’m sure she got thanked, but she deserved an astronomical one time bonus and a statue for her efforts.
Current administration thinks they are the only ones with ideas, if it ain’t there idea they don’t want to hear it. It’s the classic ‘not invented here syndrome’.
They need to thoroughly research the past, and learn from it, before they open their mouths.