Staff Report

 

MEMORANDUM

 

TO:                  City Council

FROM:            David J. Deutsch, City Manager

SUBJECT:       Emergency Preparedness Update

DATE:             September 21, 2010

This memorandum serves to describe the City’s efforts in the area of emergency preparedness as it relates to the recently published Maryland Municipal League Hometown Emergency Preparedness Committee’s (HEPAC) Elected Officials Emergency Preparedness Guide (Attachment 1, Page 9).  During the September 27, 2010 Worksession, staff will review the City’s progress on emergency preparedness, expand upon the bulleted items below, and will be prepared for discussion of the issues.

The MML Guide lists nine basic areas for which municipal emergency management is responsible.  These nine responsibilities are delineated below along with Bowie’s status as it relates to each responsibility:

• Identifying and assessing potential hazards.   The City’s Emergency Operations Plan contains a matrix of potential hazards and a gauge of their possible effect on the City (Attachment 2).  The matrix was developed by compiling a list of standard natural and man-made hazards that have affected our City in the past as well as analyzing potential hazards that could affect us.  We review and update the matrix as needed.  For example, the frequency of electrical outages has been downgraded from “frequent” to “sometimes” due to the Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) Bowie Electric Reliability Action Plan (BERAP). 

Natural hazards such as snowstorms and wind shears probably pose the most frequent problems for us due to road blockages, electrical outages and the varied damage that falling trees can cause.  The City continues to refine its approach to these problems by updating operations plans, networking with other agencies (such as BGE) and critiquing our actual responses to events. 

Recently we have had to concentrate part of our efforts on potential health hazards.  The H1N1 flu pandemic posed significant issues regarding Continuity of Operations (COOP), Continuity of Government (COOG), as well as community health and business concerns. 

• Developing emergency operations plans and procedures.   Staff in all departments have dedicated a significant amount of time to developing plans and procedures to be used during emergency events.  These plans include preparing checklists for machinery for winter snowstorms, contractor MOUs, installation and use of emergency power for the water wells, the ability to handle payroll off-site, and checklists for our EOC.  In addition, we have an Emergency Operations Plan for the City that has information about preparedness, media contacts, pet-friendly hotels, Citizens Emergency Response Teams (CERT), and citizen responsibilities during an emergency.  Our staff has taken training for COOP, fire drill preparation and execution, and operational checklists. 

We share our plans with other entities and present our plans to others for comments and critique (Attachment 7, Question 2).  Our plans are fluid and we welcome suggestions.

• Training personnel.  Preparing and responding to emergencies begins with the individual.  The City provides its employees with emergency preparedness training that not only is job specific, but is also the basis for family preparedness.  It only makes sense to ensure that employees have their families taken care of before they can be expected to assist others.

Job specific training for our employees has included Incident Command System (ICS) training from the basic level to the highest level of certification offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Our employees regularly attend emergency preparedness classes offered by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG), Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), and the Prince George’s County Office of Emergency Management (PGCOEM), BGE, and the National League of Cities (NLC). 

Our relationship with the Bowie Volunteer Fire Department (BVFD) has led to continuing classes in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Automatic External Defibrillation (AED) training for our employees.  The BVFD also makes this training available to our Citizens Emergency Response Team (CERT) members.

One of the Emergency Management FY 2011 Budget objectives is to have City employees trained in the use of home and workplace fire extinguishers.  This training is being conducted on a monthly basis.  It is projected that 100 City employees will be trained by the end of April 2011.  The training includes a classroom movie, Question and Answer period, an outdoor practical exercise, and a test for certification.  

To increase our ability to interface with other entities during an incident, some staff have been trained in WEBEOC – a web-based program allowing permitted users to communicate, request resources, and track incident progress.  Our Information Technology Department recently participated in an emergency based GIS training with other local IT and emergency management groups. 

To increase our ability to operate emergency equipment, several staff members have been trained in the use of our recently refurbished satellite phones (regional grant funds paid for the refurbishing of the phones). We are also in the process of increasing the number of staff trained in sending out alerts through Alert Bowie. 

In July, staff participated in a Prince George’s County Health Department Training class on medicine and vaccine distribution. During that training session, City staff were asked to present an overview of our experiences with our very successful November 2009 H1N1 Clinic (Attachment 3). Staff also participated in, and trained at, the Howard County Flu Vaccine disbursement in October 2009 and at the Anne Arundel County Flu Vaccine disbursement in November 2009.  While the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recently proclaimed the H1N1 pandemic to be over, the training is germane to most similar medicine or vaccine distributions. 

In November 2009, the City hosted a COOP planning seminar for City employees and other local governments from the National Capital Region (NCR) (Attachment 3).  This training turned out to be particularly useful in light of the snowstorms that followed during the winter.

In July 2010, two Council members and a staff member attended the two-day National League of Cities Seminar for Elected and Appointed Officials in Alexandria, Virginia.  This seminar covered a wide variety of subjects, including the National Incident Management System (NIMS), Incident Command System (ICS), Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, FEMA grants, and press relations. 

• Conducting drills and exercises to test plans.  A tabletop, drill, or functional exercise is designed to test a particular plan, service, or function for which an entity is responsible or supports. The November 2009 H1N1 clinic is a perfect example of putting our training, partnering abilities, and technology to use in a real life situation.  After working with the Prince George’s County Health Department to plan an H1N1 clinic, staff observed and trained with Howard County and Anne Arundel County Health Departments, engaged Bowie Health Center to assist in our planning and delivery of vaccines, and called out our CERT team to provide logistical support.  We ran the City Hall event using ICS and employed our Alert Bowie technology to invite additional participants near the end of the event since we had extra vaccines to disperse (Attachment 3).

Four of the twelve (1, 2, 7, 12) FY 2011 Budget objectives for Emergency Management are specific to tabletop and functional exercises (Attachment 4). We conducted one  tabletop exercise, prepared and moderated by an emergency management consultant, in   2009.  This same consultant is prepared to conduct another tabletop exercise for staff  in November 2010.

Since the emergency management consultant was familiar with the City’s first responder and support responsibilities after conducting the first tabletop exercise, staff asked him to review Council Budget Objective #12 ( regarding the emergency preparedness drill/ exercise) and prepare a rough draft proposal with cost estimate. The consultant  reviewed the objective and prepared a rough draft proposal that included an eight- month timeline and a cost estimate of $150,000-$250,000 (Attachment 5). 

• Working among levels of government, volunteer agencies and the private sector to ensure that all understand their roles and responsibilities during disaster response.  We interface with the County, State, and our other municipal partners on a regular basis to determine readiness status, resource availability, and preparedness updates.  Our relationship with utility providers such as BGE allows us direct contact to the people who can assess our concerns and make real-time decisions. 

We have a relationship with a variety of volunteer groups and agencies.  Locally, our Bowie CERT group has responded to our own events as well as County-wide events (Attachment 6).  The Bowie Child Care group is active in emergency preparedness and meets regularly at City Hall.  We continue to exchange information with our faith-based emergency preparedness partners. We have also called upon our Bowie Boy Scouts and Civil Air Patrol to help locate fire hydrants and shovel sidewalks during the snow.  We currently have a waiting list of residents interested in CERT training.  Unfortunately, the County is not financially prepared to host any CERT classes at this time.

We interact with our regional neighbors through the MWCOG.  During last winter’s snowstorms, we participated in regular conference calls with National Capital Region (NCR) representatives from Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., FEMA, MEMA, WMATA, WSSC, BGE, and many other public and private entities to keep abreast of the storms’ impacts.  After the conference calls, we would provide a synopsis to Council and the Bowie residents through email, Alert Bowie, and cable television.  The City Manager participated in the MWCOG snowstorm after-action conference.  The City’s After-Action Critique of our snowstorm response was distributed to regional representatives as a best-practices resource. 

We have participated in local, State, and region-wide exercises and training.  Our plans and actions have been acknowledged by local leaders as models for others.

• Providing critical information to the public before, during and after a disaster occurs.  It is our goal to educate the public to the greatest extent possible so that in the event of an emergency, they have supplies on hand, they have a basic understanding of what to expect, and they know where to go for information. In addition to regular reminders about emergency preparedness and registering for Alert Bowie, staff speaks to groups and conducts outreach at large community events, such as National Night Out and the Bowie Health Fair. We will also be speaking to homeowners’ associations over the coming months about preparedness.

Every predicted weather situation or reported emergency provides an opportunity to educate the public, while the subject is fresh in their minds.  For example, although the effects of the July earthquake centered in Gaithersburg were minimal, we issued information about what to do during earthquakes and the importance of general preparedness. When significant snow was predicted last winter, information was distributed via the government channel, Alert Bowie, recorded messages on our phone system, the City website, message boards and the local media about the forecast, how streets would be plowed, how to contact the City, and reminders about having a full tank of gas, and food and supplies in case the power went out.  During the storms, updates were provided by the same means as above, and after the storm, we continued to share information about plowing, refuse collection, sidewalk shoveling and safety.  We went through a similar process earlier this month in sharing preparatory information when it looked like we might have a brush with Hurricane Earl. 

• Facilitating mutual aid.  The City is a member of the MWCOG.  As such, we are covered by the National Capital Region Mutual Aid Agreement (NCR-MAA) which guides the implementation of mutual aid between all members. The BVFD and County Fire Department have a mutual aid agreement with Anne Arundel County to provide Fire and EMS services across County lines.  The City Police Department has a mutual aid agreement with the County (Attachment 7, Question 10).  Staff recently met with our local MWCOG partners (Greenbelt, Bladensburg and College Park) and began discussions regarding a possible MOU between the entities regarding emergency resource sharing.  The issue is in the discussion stage only and no decision has been made at this point regarding an outcome. 

The City Public Works Department has a mutual aid agreement with MWCOG for debris removal and is currently in the final stages of finishing an MOU with other Maryland entities regarding utilities.

• Administering disaster assistance programs.  The City has been fortunate to escape major disaster damages.  However, after the 2009 and 2010 snowstorms, staff attended several training seminars related to FEMA reimbursements.  The City has been through the reimbursement process before, however due to some 2009 changes in the law affecting the process, several staff members attended FEMA meetings in an effort to learn how to optimize our potential returns.  The City has the potential to receive $193,000 in FEMA reimbursements. 

Providing overall coordination for disaster response.  Our staff constantly tries to improve our ability to respond to emergency events.  This is part of the preparedness stage of emergency management.  We take advantage of training and seminars with many different partners, including BGE, the County, BVFD, CERT groups, faith-based organizations, State Highway Administration (SHA) and many others so that response efforts run smoothly. During these trainings and seminars, we are able to better understand each organization’s abilities as well as deficiencies.  We are also able to “put a name with a face” from other organizations so that when communicating during an event, there is the belief that we are communicating with someone who we know and can trust. 

 When an event such as a hurricane or snowstorm is threatening, we use our contacts and partnerships to plan in advance as much of our response as possible.  The region-wide coordination efforts and local efforts are passed down to our City residents through our varied communications media.  We have redundancy in our communications capabilities in an effort to keep vital information flowing. 

Whether it is a predicted event or an unforeseen event we always have a basic plan drawn and communicated to those who will be responding.  This is a basic tenet of ICS and
helps enable the response to be coordinated, efficient and safe. 

The City fits the role of “coordinator” very well when responding to emergency events. Our Public Works Department has an excellent relationship with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) and has developed a method of sharing water services in an emergency.  We have strengthened our working relationship with BGE to assess and resolve power outages.  We are in the process of planning a dispatch center that can be used in conjunction with a region-wide EOC.  The City provides the BVFD with monetary support and in turn receives a variety of training opportunities from them.  While most of our responses are in supporting roles, we realize that without our support the primary responders can’t work as efficiently.

Summary

The City continues to be active in the process of emergency management and its four phases of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.  Being proactive by holding such events as the H1N1 vaccination clinic, preparing for winter weather well before the season starts, following plans for releasing timely and important information to our residents, and applying for appropriate reimbursements are simple examples of our work in each phase of the process.  Our technology is improving and our participation in emergency management training and education is expanding.  We are fortunate that our NCR offers a variety of organized support functions and that our citizens are actively involved.   Emergency management remains a topic of discussion at staff meetings and staff is always amenable to comments and suggestions.     

DJD/AC

Attachment 1
Attachment 2-7