Ice Storm Prompts Training To Handle Disasters Better Local Officials To Apply For Federal Emergency Management Course

Last November’s ice storm was a cruel teacher, but lessons learned during that 13-day period may be just an introductory class for local officials.

Dave Byrnes, director of Spokane city-county Emergency Operations Center, is preparing an application for a federal emergency management course.

If accepted, as many as 75 officials from the county, city, fire districts and other agencies would travel to the Emergency Management Institute in Maryland for a week of training and exercises designed to upgrade local response to everything from extreme weather to terrorism.

Several King County jurisdictions last year participated in a drill at the institute predicated on a massive earthquake.

Byrnes noted that Oklahoma City authorities attended the institute shortly before the bombing of the federal courthouse last year.

“That’s why they did so well,” he said.

Byrnes said he is still working on a go-ahead from Spokane officials to submit the application, which will be reviewed by state officials and Federal Emergency Management Administration’s regional headquarters in Bothell before going to the institute for final approval.

FEMA pays the cost of airfare, housing, and the instruction itself. Meals and miscellaneous expenses are the responsibility of the participants.

Course Manager Ray Chevalier said he and other institute instructors visit the communities planning to take the course to brief officials and review their emergency plans.

They also tour the area so they know landmarks and key facilities that can be used in a disaster scenario.

“We actually use the community plans,” he said.

Byrnes said local officials already are reassessing their preparedness in the wake of the ice storm. Preliminary conclusions, he said, allowed authorities to respond to the flooding last month in Rockford more quickly than they might have before.

The group also has agreed to meet quarterly in two-hour brown bag lunches to hear presentations and discuss different types of disaster response.

Byrnes said the county also must upgrade maps of evacuation routes, utilities rights-of-way and other locators critical in an emergency.

The work has too low a priority now, he said. And officials need to look at the possibility of consolidating emergency operations, Byrnes said.

, DataTimes