Training for the November 29, 2012
Salt Lake City Southeast Division Emergency Preparedness Net
By T. Michael Smith (KM7TMS)
About two weeks ago our net control and others were invited to attend a Utah State Emergency Preparedness Office event. Some of you may have been invited. Not being able to attend, Susan asked me to go which I was interested in doing. The event was held in the old EOC room in the Capitol complex. It was worth going just to get to know the state level emergency preparedness operations a little better. However, our training was targeted to one important aspect of emergency management. It is a side of the response often overlooked. It is a side of the activity that is also very important. To introduce this topic, I’ll begin by setting it in a context of a typical CERT event, rather than just the state-level event our training was oriented toward.
Let’s begin by remembering the Southeast Division field exercise of Fall 2011. We met at Sugar House Park and drilled parts of the incident command structure and a CERT field response in preparation for the 2012 Shakeout Drill. We practiced setting up and staffing an Incident Command Post, designating an Incident Commander and a communications person, who received mock field reports and sent information to a Salt Lake City Emergency Management communicator. We briefly reviewed the Planning and Administrative units of Incident Command and established the Operations and Logistics units, which became the main elements of the drill.
You may recall that our SLC CERT Coordination Guide places communications in logistics. Also in logistics are the supplies and facilities management tasks and the team support tasks. Tonight, I want to focus on one aspect of the supplies and facilities management. It is the activity that was the subject of the state workshop I attended and something a field Command Post can encounter.
Imagine yourself as a CERT volunteer assigned to run the Logistics unit or even the front-line person working with supplies, when someone shows up asking if you would like to borrow some expensive piece of equipment, like a generator. What do you do?
Hopefully, you would have a conversation with the lender before you decided to proceed. As there is no easy Salt Lake City CERT-manual answer to this question and as circumstances can greatly affect what you might do, I’m not going to advance an answer right now. Rather, I’m going to tell you a little about the Donations Training I recently received from the Utah State Emergency Training personnel.
In the workshop, we were introduced to sophisticated software that some emergency operations centers are using to handle donations. I’ll not attempt to explain the details, but I’ll say it’s a lot more rigorous than a pad of lined paper at the typical CERT IC Post table such as we might set up in our drills. Indeed, the EM software tracks donations and provides data that those seeking supplies can access. Bottom line for the point I want to make here is that what is donated to the emergency response is rigorously tracked. The major point in the meeting was that in the event of a major emergency those operations centers that are big and deep enough to utilize this type of software are going to need trained volunteers, as in CERTS, who can create those supply records and help manage those donations. Now, not many of you valued hams may want to do this, but you might consider it. And, more importantly, you might pass on to your local CERT groups that in the event of an emergency we are going to need people in logistics who can deal with donations and loans.
By the way, the workshop was not really about tracking loans. In fact, in an emergency they say that trying to keep track of and route the donations is difficult. Furthermore, they said the best donations are cash donations. Of course, I don’t expect to see cash boxes at our little IC drill tables, but I do offer what the big operations are doing as a model. Keeping track of loaned equipment is difficult in the best of times and fraught with problems in the emergency situation. If you’re ever in that situation, you can decide what you want to do. Talking to the IC beforehand on loans and donations is wise. If I am the local Incident Commander or the logistics person and can persuade the owner to also volunteer to operate the equipment, then I’m probably a lot more interested than if he just wants to lend equipment I may not be able to track. If he wants to donate it I’m probably interested. I might just decide this is over my head and refer him to the state office or any other appropriate up-line people.
The State’s 2013 shakeout exercise will include a donations and supplies movement component. If you know of any CERTs who might be interested in participating in tracking donations in a drill environment, please have them contact Susan Thomas at the Division of Homeland Security. Because CERTs have some emergency training and a basic understanding of the Incident Command System, their assistance is being sought in dealing with the donations during emergencies. By the way, Utah was donating materials to Hurricane Sandy.
At this time, Salt Lake City does not plan to directly participate in the 2013 Shakeout drill but may have a Fall 2013 exercise. Of course, we in the Southeast Division may decide to have a drill during the week of the Shakeout.
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