Calendar of Events Import
Central Illinois Weather Net Severe Weather Seminar
The Central Illinois Weather Net made up of all 35 counties in Central and Southeast Illinois under the warning jurisdiction of the Lincoln NWS Office and the National Weather Service in Lincoln is hosting the annual “Severe Weather Seminar” in Peoria on March 5th. The seminar will feature guest speakers including Brandon Sullivan, professional stormchaser from Accuweather, Jared Guyer from the Storm Prediction Center and many more speakers. The seminar will be at the JUMP Start Training Facility in Peoria, IL with registration starting at 8 AM and wrapping up at 4:30 PM.
Those wanting to attend can sign up online CLICK HERE
The Seminar has been approved for 6.5 IEMA Training Hours for those needing credit for EMPG or accreditation. The Severe Weather Seminar will feature breakout sessions on responding on various National Weather Service Topics, Public Information, Storm Prediction Center, Army Corp Of Engineers and two presentations from Brandon Sullivan. The Seminar is the first of its kind in the state and is a joint collaboration between Emergency Management Agencies and the National Weather Service.
The funding provided by the seminar is used to enhance weather monitoring capabilities within the 35 counties of the National Weather Service in Lincoln. In 2014 the Weather Net purchased an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to assist on damage assessments and flooding assessments in disaster areas. The group also purchased the Starcom Radios for the National Weather Service in Lincoln in 2013. In 2016 the Central Illinois Weather Net will be phasing in weather stations in select areas with a 35 county wide rollout in mind after the testing period.
For more information contact:
Chris Helle – Fulton County ESDA
Email: ESDA@Fultonco.org
Cellphone: 309-224-7701 |
Message from the IESMA President
Curtis Hawk, IESMA President  It is my pleasure to once again comment to you as your President of the Association.
First of all I want to comment all of the members of the organization that I hope that you are getting online and paying you dues, and seeing the information there that we have provided you. But most of all I hope that you are recruiting new members into our fine organization. Please invite a new person whether a member or not, to our next meeting and we can show them what we do and who we are.
Illinois’ local emergency management community has been, and continues to be, a group of dedicated professionals that are supported by numerous men and women working countless hours to prepare for, respond to, and recover from any type of disaster. In recent years we have been confronted with blizzards, winter storms, severe weather, tornadoes, flooding, and numerous other disastrous events.
As the first line of defense, IESMA and emergency managers statewide are the first response to stricken communities providing coordination and management of critical resources, public information, life safety and essential services during response and recovery efforts. Working side-by-side with other first response agencies, such as our partners in IMT and EMAT our focus is the protection of the life, property and the environment.
I would be remised if I did not congratulate the fine men and women who stepped up and were ready to deploy or had deployed to the recent flooding. Without your dedication we would have struggled through some hard times in many communities in Illinois. You are the ones that make us proud to be members and have made me proud that you had elected me as your President for the year.
Today, IESMA represents more than 550 emergency management professionals throughout the State of Illinois. IESMA was formed by emergency management professionals from local government in 1966.
Then, as now, our mission remains unchanged;
“To coordinate the efforts of its members in a common cause and protect the lives and property of the citizens we serve.”
Christian County’s Elected Official Manual Prepares Policy Makers for a Local Disaster
Mike Crews, Christian County EMA, IESMA Region 6 RVP  One concern I'm certain we have all struggled with as Emergency Managers, is the plans we develop will never be read by our policy makers. Of course, these are the individuals that must have "buy in" to emergency preparedness activities, regardless if a disaster has taken place or not. A lack of understanding can easily translate into reduced budgets as we make our pitch for our share of the monetary pie.
From the policy maker's perspective, sitting down to read a 300 page Emergency Operations Plan is not an appealing proposition. So with the thought of balancing the sterile EOP content and creating a "good read," I developed a booklet in 2010 targeting their responsibilities within each discipline. This booklet is now in its second edition with several new chapters.
I will share the booklet as it was especially well received with our local policy makers. The second edition is 101 pages in length with a production cost of $9.80 per copy. Each mayor, council member, treasurer, clerk and township supervisor from all of the Christian County communities and townships received a copy.
Below is the book Introduction, which outlines the intent and importance of reading the booklet:
"This booklet was prepared for all Christian County elected officials with the intent to better prepare them for a local disaster. There are many books available for elected officials concerning the role of the community's leader organizing emergency management activities. This booklet however, focuses on specific Christian County needs and resources. I believe this booklet will be especially beneficial for newly elected officials who are suddenly thrust into an emergency management role without any prior experience or knowledge of what the local capabilities and resources are.
By definition, a disaster is the impact of a natural or manmade hazard that negatively affects society or the environment. The word disaster may conjures up a variety of situations depending on the context placed by the persons speaking and listening. For example, someone loosing their home from a fire, using the term disaster is accurate when looking at the impact to that individual's household. However, the fire department that responded to this fire would aptly classify the response as an emergency. In this booklet, the term disaster has more significant meaning than a "routine emergency.” Generally, if a community's resources have been depleted or severely overburdened in two disciplines (i.e. fire service and public works) a disaster has occurred.
Through seasonal change and simple geography, Christian County is vulnerable to many environmental hazards in varying degrees throughout the year. Snowstorms, thunderstorms with high winds, tornadoes, flash floods and ice storms are potential threats to our citizens. Further, Christian County contains significant transportation corridors and infrastructures; if they are affected, there is a possibility of great bodily harm, property damage and or profound economic impact upon our communities. Fortunately, these types of disasters are not an everyday occurrence to Christian County communities; in fact, major disasters may occur years apart from one another. Thus, many elected officials lack firsthand experience in disaster recovery. Additionally, the percentage of elected officials with any formal emergency management training in Christian County is negligible.
This booklet focuses on major, broad activities expected to take place during a disaster. It is intended as a guide with helpful, systematic actions to take during varying situations. You will find the booklet broken up into numerous disaster related topics separated by chapters. I attempted to provide an overview of that topic and what actions may need to be considered before, during and after the disaster takes place. Also within the booklet is an overview of the different types of resources and agencies specific to Christian County. The intent is to familiarize you with other like resources outside of your community boundaries, which may be utilized to assist your community during a disaster.
I strongly recommend reviewing this information periodically to refresh your memory. History has shown the elected officials who took a proactive approach to disaster preparedness responded more quickly. Their preparedness played a significant role in easing the anxieties of those whose lives were affected.
I am hopeful this booklet stirs a greater interest in disaster preparedness with our elected officials. As the Christian County Emergency Manager, I intend to provide you with all the resources of this office to better prepare your communities.
The Elected Officials Manual will soon be available for download in the file archive of your IESMA membership login.
IESMA Training Summit - SAVE THE DATE!
IESMA Conference Committee
Twisters Give Nation a Pass in 2015: Lowest Death Toll on Record?
Bob Henson - Weather Underground Blog Amid all the genuinely awful news making the rounds in recent days, here is one bright spot: the year 2015 may end up with the lowest number of U.S. tornado fatalities in at least 141 years. As of December 2, preliminary numbers from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center show only 10 tornado-related deaths nationwide. If this number holds through the end of the year, it will beat the 12 deaths reported in 1910 to become the lowest annual total on record. NOAA/SPC keeps tabs on tornado statistics, including fatalities, back to 1950. For earlier periods, veteran researcher Thomas Grazulis (author of the definitive volume “Significant Tornadoes 1680-1991”) has combed through newspapers and other archives to come up with the best existing data on tornado occurrence and fatalities as far back as 1875. If anything, the Grazulis numbers may be on the low side, which gives added confidence that the nation has indeed seen a remarkably safe year tornado-wise in 2015. The year is not done, though: 5 of the last 10 Decembers produced at least one tornado fatality, with the highest total of that period being 9 in December 2010.
Figure 1. Tornado deaths are far below the levels observed prior to the advent of the National Weather Service watch/warning system in the 1950s, although the catastrophic tornadoes of 2011 produced the biggest spike in fatalities in more than 80 years. Data provided courtesy Harold Brooks, NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory; data sources are NWS (1950 – 2015) and Thomas Grazulis (1875 – 1949).
Figure 2. The EF4 tornado that plowed across northern Illinois just west of Chicago on April 9, 2015, photographed near Stillman Valley, Illinois. Image credit: wunderphotographer StormyPleasures (Charles Russell).
Figure 3. Wreckage lies along Illinois State Highway 64 near Rochelle, Illinois, on April 10, 2015, after an EF4 tornado struck the previous night. Image credit: Jon Durr/Getty Images)
Northwest flow cuts down on strength, frequency of tornadoes
Part of the story this year is sheer good luck. The strongest tornado of 2015 so far occurred on April 9: a violent EF4 twister that tracked over 30 miles of northern Illinois just west of Chicago. Just a small shift in that tornado’s track could have produced far more havoc. And the unseasonably late tornadic swarm of November 16 over the southern Great Plains produced three large EF3 tornadoes but comparatively little damage. Apart from these two outbreaks, the year’s crop of tornadoes was generally on the weak and short-lived side. A single outbreak can make an otherwise quiet year devastating, but in general, “a low number of tornadoes correlates to a low number of tornado deaths,” noted Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist at NOAA/SPC, in an email.
After the horrific tornado season of 2011 (with 553 fatalities, the nation’s deadliest since 1925), the U.S. has seen four consecutive years with below-average activity, if we count 2015 in advance. For this quietude, we can thank the same predominant upper-level pattern that’s stoked four years of intense drought in California and shunted a large fraction of hurricanes away from the East Coast. “The stagnant large-scale pattern of generally northwest flow that has dominated central North America for the past few years has certainly played some role in suppressing conditions more supportive of tornado outbreaks,” Carbin said. “Whether this shift to more tranquil conditions is part of some longer-term oscillation, a result of climate change dynamics, or both, or just a random occurrence, is hard to say.”
Figure 4. The number of tornadoes in 2015 thus far is running about 25% below the 1954-2007 average for this time of year, when adjusted for multiple initial reports and for tornado “inflation” (the increased likehood in more recent years that a given tornado is documented). Image credit: NOAA Storm Prediction Center.
An uptick in tornado deaths over the last decade
Naturally, given the nature of his job, Carbin worries about the possibility that a quiet stretch could soften people’s resolve to keep themselves and their loved ones safe from tornadoes. The decade from 2005 to 2014 produced a total of 1092 tornado-related deaths. That’s roughly double the death rate that prevailed over the three prior decades (1975-84, 1985-94, and 1995-2004). Clearly, the numbers for the past decade are skewed by the huge death toll in 2011, but a total of six of the ten years in 2005-2014 produced at least 50 deaths. That wasn’t the case in any of the three previous decades.
“The annual death toll in the modern era is likely influenced more by the number of tornadoes than by our improved ability to predict them,” Carbin emphasized. “The conditions to support a widespread killer tornado outbreak can come together in a matter of 2-3 days. We need to maintain vigilance!”
A General Plan for Eight Phases of Farmland Debris Cleanup After Tornadoes
J.L. Rozdilsky & D. A. Wombles, Western Illinois University Phase #1 - Shock
The tornado has just occurred and farmers will be experiencing the initial shock of being disaster victims. At this point, dealing with the debris on farmland will be a lower priority than coping with damage to one’s home, etc.
Phase #2 - Damage Estimate
Begin to analyze the extent of tornado damage to the farmland in order to guide cleanup efforts. Data is collected such as the spatial extent of debris on the farm, the volume of debris present, and considerations are made concerning the time of year in relation to the growing season.
Phase #3 - Declaration of Collection Points
Isolate and collect very large pieces of debris like roof trusses, parts of walls, damaged cars, etc. Designate centralized collection points with piles or dumpsters in order to minimize driving trucks all over the fields in order to avoid soil compaction.
Phase #4 - Volume Reduction
Use methods such as trucking the dumpsters to landfills, burning (where appropriate), and recycling to reduce the volume of debris and get it off-site.
Phase #5 - Sweeping
The focus now shifts to the medium-sized debris that can fit in 5-gallon buckets. Use tractor-based landscape rakes and teams of people walking the fields to pick-up debris by hand.
Phase #6 - Graze Zoning Designation
As even smaller ‘litter-sized’ debris can be damaging to farm machines, use survey flags to mark off zones the size of city lots to organize the final phases of the cleanup.
Phase #7 - Intensive Grazing
This step involves labor intensive work to pick up the dangerous small items (like nails, shingles, metal, glass fragments, etc.) by having workers use magnets, hand rakes, and perhaps crawl the designated smaller zones to find the smaller buried items.
Phase #8 - Approval of Area for Farming
The farmer performs a final close inspection of the smaller zones that have been cleaned in order to make sure the fields are suitable to resume farming operations.
Is ‘Pretty Good’ Enough?
Adam Stone | emergencymgmt.com 
The question on the table today is whether “pretty good” is good enough when it comes to emergency management. Because some things are pretty good, after all. The Stafford Act, FEMA, the Incident Command System (ICS): They get the job done.
But is that sufficient? There is grumbling throughout much of the emergency management community that each of these pillars of the profession can and should be improved upon.
They’re poorly structured, top heavy, fiscally irrational, inflexible — pick your poison. Changes must be made.
Despite the flaws, some say, the system runs as well as one might hope, and why tinker with (moderate) success? So what should and can be changed? How can Stafford, FEMA and ICS be made to perform to higher standards?
The Stafford Act
Enacted in 1988, the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act lays out the framework for federal disaster assistance. It establishes a process for declaring disasters, determining response levels, and dividing up costs among federal, state and local governments, depending on circumstance.
Some want to see changes in the way Stafford approaches jurisdictional questions. Essentially the law declares disasters based on political, rather than geographic, boundaries. “This is fundamentally flawed,” said John Pennington, director of emergency management for Snohomish County, Wash.
The Stafford Act declares disasters based on political, rather than geographic, boundaries, some say. Photo by APImages.com
He points for example to the likely scenario of a statewide disaster in Oregon negatively impacting the neighboring county in Washington state. The disaster gets defined in Oregon, by Stafford guidelines, and yet “if you cross that half-mile bridge between Oregon and Washington, Vancouver remains oftentimes isolated,” cut off from appropriate aid.
Some go further, noting that today’s understanding of the law is fundamentally flawed. The act once placed a priority on speeding disaster recovery. Recent changes to the wording emphasized saving the government money, said Gerald Quinn of Gerard J. Quinn and Associates and the California Emergency Services Association.
It doesn’t work that way. By saving the federal government money, all you do is shift the cost to the states. “The costs don’t change just because you deny federal assistance,” Quinn said. Better to put the priority back where it belongs — on recovery — rather than focus on a fictional financial ambition.
Quinn carries forward this theme of financial equity across various aspects of Stafford. Today, for instance, the government gives tax write-offs to businesses buying flood insurance, but not to individuals. Everyone should get those breaks, Quinn said. “It has to be equitable to both property owners and business owners. We’re all U.S. taxpayers.”
Proponents of the Stafford Act say it puts a legitimate burden on states to pull their own weight. If you can make it on your own, you should, with the feds stepping in only when local resources have been overwhelmed. Some call this a sensible arrangement.
“The balance right now is relatively effective in that we — state and local jurisdictions — are forced to make a strong effort on our own, which was always the underlying intent of the Stafford Act, that you should be able to do it on your own,” Pennington said.
Then, when a jurisdiction is legitimately overwhelmed, “the federal government will have a more streamlined method for delivering assistance. Otherwise, we rely too heavily on the federal government and often do not develop our own internal capabilities,” he said.
Would others like to see the federal side carry more weight? Likely so.
FEMA Reform
Everybody loves FEMA when the tornado touches down; we stand on our porches waiting for federal rescuers to come and set things right. Everybody hates FEMA after the wind dies down. The agency was too slow; it didn’t help enough.
Emergency managers are typically more for than against. FEMA does make a difference, but they’d like to see some changes.
As president of the Massachusetts Association of Emergency Management Professionals, Carol McMahon sees a lot of good in the agency, but complains that interactions with FEMA can be onerous, far exceeding the capabilities of many local authorities.
Massachusetts has six full-time emergency management directors statewide, hardly enough to oversee the efforts of local authorities trying to write complicated mitigation grants. It would help if FEMA would offer more training, but what’s needed is a drastic overhaul in procedures. “It can change, but it is going to take a systemic change,” she said.
In the meantime, the process remains weightier than some communities can reasonably bear. “With respect to the FEMA mitigation program, there still exists a somewhat onerous process for individual communities to go through, to prepare a mitigation grant that meets the criteria for award,” said McMahon. “If FEMA wants to promote resilience in local communities through mitigation efforts, there needs to be a method for our EMDs [emergency management departments] to get the assistance needed to write a successful grant application.”
Some would like to see FEMA have a mission beyond response. Photo by FEMA
At the same time, McMahon would like to see FEMA take a greater leadership role as an advocate for emergency management across all levels of government. “We continue to see that local emergency management is still often relegated to the ‘other duties as assigned’ role of a full-time first responder,” she said. “The message to the local purse holders on the importance of professionalism and leadership in emergency management needs to come down from FEMA.” While local emergency managers understand their own worth, some support for their role coming from Washington, D.C., could help local managers to see emergency managers in a different light.
In the meantime, some say it would be good to see FEMA get its own processes in order. As director of emergency services in Warren County, Ohio, Michael Bunner complains about the FEMA bureaucracy. “Just like any federal agency, they are very top heavy, and so they can of lose track of what they are tasked to do. They need to look very often at what their mission statement is,” he said.
Bunner would like to see the agency streamlined. He’d also like to see the agency play a part in the disaster community that goes beyond response. “FEMA needs to be the standard bearer for what emergency management is. They need to set the tone and the pace,” he said. Even though emergency management resides primarily at the state and local levels, federal leaders can play a role in defining the profession. “I would like to see FEMA come out with a core set of ideas and fundamentals for emergency management.”
In Prince William County, Va., Emergency Management Planner Amy Tarte would settle for a bit more clarity. If FEMA sometimes stumbles, it happens partly because the agency is following vague congressional instructions. “So much of the guidance is open to interpretation, it creates a lot of confusion, which makes it look inadequate, which leads to distrust in the system as a whole,” she said.
Quinn, meanwhile, has a laundry list.
It starts with land use. FEMA or some other high-up authority approves construction on a flood plain. The plain … floods. FEMA denies the disaster claim, arguing that the locals employed dumb land-use practices. That’s not fair, he said. “In some instances it was FEMA who signed off on the hydrology, it was FEMA who certified the levees,” Quinn said. “The federal government makes decisions, the local government makes decisions relying on those and then the local government is blamed for the outcomes.”
Sometimes the state approves a road, the county builds it, the road goes bad and FEMA again denies the claim. Quinn wants to see FEMA respect the claims of counties that were, after all, given the go-ahead by those higher up.
Just as with the Stafford Act, FEMA generates mixed feelings in terms of the delicate balance between federal and state authorities, often placing a heavy burden on states even as it comes in to help with a situation.
“Is it painful at times for states and locals? Yes, certainly,” Pennington said. “But it is forcing us to examine our own capabilities and not simply build into our policies the expectation that FEMA and assets and programs will automatically be engaged.”
Pennington has no great quibble with FEMA asking states to carry a share of the load. But he notes that at the same time, states must be given the autonomy to carry that load as they see fit. The regional model for FEMA “is at its best and strongest when its regions have the capabilities to do their jobs and the authority to act as autonomously as possible,” he said. While states must coordinate with FEMA, they also must have “the ability to work with their respective states, tribes, and yes, even directly with local jurisdictions.”
Incident Command System
While Stafford and FEMA draw attention at the national level, the Incident Command System unfolds much closer to the ground as the core operating procedure managers are tasked to put into place in times of crisis. It’s been a helpful tool — no one disputes that. But questions have come up. Is ICS too rigid? Do we depend too much on its structure as being the only way to get things done? Even among those who basically endorse the system, the answers are complicated.
Of the hot-button issues considered in this article, ICS is in some ways the most complicated — not because of all the voices raised against it, but because of the deep ambivalence even among its supporters.
Pennington lays it out this way, starting with the practical reality. “When 75 different outside agencies come into a rural EOC, each with a different method of operations, coordination or resource ordering, chaos will almost certainly ensue unless there is that common denominator such as ICS to default to,” he said. As a result of this logical necessity, “ICS is now truly part of the fabric of our response culture.”
One criticism of the Incident Command System is that training is perishable and needs constant refreshing. Photo by APImages.com
The trouble is ICS sets a high bar for how things get organized and managed. “Clearly small communities cannot often fill all or even a few of the ICS boxes. They want to make it work, but they do not have the realistic capability to make it happen,” he said.
Consultant Lucien Canton wrote that ICS has two significant drawbacks. It was developed to coordinate the activities of hierarchical agencies that have a defined chain of command. But not all organizations are hierarchical. For instance, in the corporate sector, many companies are more consensus driven and use flattened management structures. Attempting to use an incident management structure that is contrary to your corporate culture inevitably leads to failure. This is particularly true, Canton says, when you consider the second ICS drawback, which is the extensive training burden it places on an organization. Unless practiced very day, ICS training is perishable and needs constant refreshing.
Another criticism, which was voiced repeatedly after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, is that ICS doesn’t scale to large catastrophes because it wasn’t created for them. And it was reported that many working the oil spill were unfamiliar with ICS. It’s a checkbox, critics say, and not really learned.
Tarte gives the system high marks, but she sees where others can get stuck. ICS is a management-oriented, task-based structure that appeals to responders from, say, public health. Cops and firefighters might see its chain of command as too rigid, especially when they are used to working with greater autonomy. Not a shortcoming, but instead a cultural issue, she said.
Such problems can be overcome without changing the system, but rather by changing the mindset. Instead of teaching ICS as a set of rules, training should position it as a set of principles. “In every working environment, you have superiors and subordinates, you have common terminology. All ICS does is define those things and give them a framework,” Tarte said. “Within that, you let people explore and do what they need to do, but there is still accountability.”
Bunner rides the same horse. He has no problem with the system — “the pieces are in place, the structure is there” — but he’d like to see smarter training. Even those who understand ICS still muddle the documentation; they think too locally without pondering the global picture; they fail to articulate objectives and strategies.
But that doesn’t mean the system is flawed. “You can massage it to be whatever is applicable to you during that event. It boils down to education,” Bunner said, especially in smaller jurisdictions, which may not be able to tap into the needed resources.
Maybe it is all about education, but that’s not a trivial statement. A poorly understood ICS will be a poorly implemented ICS. “When I go into an EOC, I have no problem with people running that EOC under ICS. But if people don’t understand the objective, if they don’t understand the discipline, that is going to be an issue,” Quinn said.
Even when key players have been trained up to speed, cultural issues will keep coming back. Those who have issues with ICS called it “too rigid,” and ultimately it doesn’t matter how true that perception is. To make the system deliver to its best potential, such perceptions must be overcome.
It is easy for rescuers to get mired in their own biases. “ICS is built on a military model and I dislike that, because civilians don’t say ‘Yes, Sir,’” said Quinn. In fact, he acknowledges, the military vibe only coats the surface. “There is a lot of adaptability as part of the structure. But independent operators don’t get to just make decisions in a vacuum.”
Perhaps most important, those on both sides of the fence acknowledge that when all is said and done, there does need to be some baseline, some playbook with all the basic moves laid out. For today at least, ICS is that playbook. “It truly is the common denominator,” Pennington said.
Those who fear the hierarchical nature of ICS need to be taught a different view. Any incident commander is free to make changes on the fly; any responder can make the case for a change in tactic. “There is no impediment to doing that. You can do it. But you can’t do it unilaterally,” Quinn said.
Emergency managers know that for the most part things work most of the time, not just at ground level in times of crisis, but also at the level of policy. Even big-picture federal policies, procedures and agencies very often get the job done.
Still, things can always get better. Laws can be changed to respond to current needs, agencies can be fine-tuned and even the processes that govern the fundamentals of emergency management can stand to come under the microscope from time to time.
As for these three in particular? It would be great to be able to say that the time is ripe, that the political and financial stars have aligned at the local, state and federal levels, and that important changes are in the wind. But change is incremental when and if it comes at all. For any advances to be made, the emergency management community will need to advocate on its own behalf, to speak up among those who wield the power, ensuring that the issues are understood and the priorities are recognized by those in a position to implement change.
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