By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Local EMA and first responders used Wednesday morning to brush up on their skills with an emergency exercise conducted by Crawford County EMA.
Members of county police and fire departments helped participate in the exercise that dealt with a theoretical propane leak at DT Petroleum in Bucyrus using the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office basement as the base for the emergency situation.
Crawford County EMA director Tim Flock explained the purpose of the exercise.
“We are mandated to do a hazmat exercise once a year. That is what really spurred us. We look at how our partners are handling not only their daily activities like fire response, but we include those things like evacuation. Sheltering, how does Red Cross respond with sheltering, how do we close roads, where do we push people to when we shut off certain areas? And that type of stuff.”
Data was quickly assembled as to how many people live in the vicinity of DT Petroleum. Data on the plant, including conflicting reports of the amount of propane tanks, were then assembled with officers beginning an evacuation plan of residents in the neighborhood that included Bucyrus City Schools.
Members that didn’t go to DT Petroleum assessed potential worst case scenarios. Emergency alerts were being sent out via Wireless Emergency Network System (WENS). Of the estimated 1,000 people in the area, the EMA quickly found that about 80 residents received the information as notifications of the exercise were sent to area WENS users including local media.
Flock explained that it is important that community members sign up for WENS in order to help get the word out about emergency situations.
Flock explained how to sign up for WENS.
“Wireless Emergency Network, also known as WENS, is a program that Crawford County has to help notify individuals of each type of event,” Flock said. “The easiest way would be to visit the Crawford County Emergency Management website (http://entry.inspironlogistics.com/crawford_co_oh/wens.cfm) or search for Crawford County WENS.”
Flock explained that those who have questions about WENS should call the Crawford County EMA office at 419-562-6009.
As the exercise unfolded, various computer programs tailored specifically to each emergency department were being viewed. These included updates on potential hazards from windy conditions, potential blast hazards, as well as logs of what was happening on scene.
Once the emergency exercise was completed, those who had gone out to assess the scene and conduct the mock evacuation returned to the Sheriff’s Office with their findings.
In the round table discussion many of the emergency responders were pleased with the new uses of technology such as WENS, Marplot and social media. There was a little confusion, though, with the area covered falling under a few jurisdictions. Bucyrus Police Chief Dave Koepke explained how he went about clarifying the situation.
“With it being in more than one jurisdiction it can be confusing,” Chief Koepke said. “So I would call Sheriff (Scott) Kent on his cell phone. Once the situation was known we began to shut down roads and started redirecting traffic.”
Flock explained how he felt the exercises went for the day.
“Our goal was to look at evacuations, and our goal was to test some of our new technology in the emergency operations center, and from that standpoint we learned quite a bit on things we need to work on. Emergency response is one of those things that take forever. You are never done with it. So I think we succeeded in at least getting into some new technology and we will continue to work on what the next step is.”
State officials will develop a report from the comments of the evaluators as well as their own observations from the exercise with results expected in 30 days.