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June 15, 2012

Vigo team hears lessons from Henryville

Howard Greninger The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — Managing volunteers, fully documenting expenses such as debris removal and obtaining pre-emergency contracts for items such as portable toilets are lessons members of the District 7 Incident Management Team learned in response to a March tornado in Henryville, Ind.

Maj. Jeff Fox of Vigo County Sheriff’s Department, served as operations section chief for District 7, working in debris management. He was first assigned to Marysville, where 28 of the village’s 30 homes were destroyed on March 2 near Henryville.

He was among those who met Thursday at the Vigo County Annex to report on lessons learned, highlighting a need for local government agencies to work together.

Fox said one lesson is to know and contact landfills before an incident to ensure that facilities are certified to take rubble, such as home debris. Shipments to one landfill were ceased by state officials during the removal of debris because it was not certified to receive such items, Fox said.

First responders showed many volunteers where to go and what was needed, Fox said.  Good management of volunteers is important, otherwise “it will overwhelm you and become unmanageable. It becomes chaotic.”

Fox recommends immediately appointing a person to serve as a volunteer manager, who coordinates where volunteers assemble and areas where volunteers can work.

Greencastle Fire Chief Bill Newgent, who served as incident commander for District 7 in Clark County, said the F4 category tornado (winds 207 to 260 mph) that hit Henryville also produced several F3 category tornadoes (winds 158 to 206 mph).

“There was 1.8 million cubic yards of debris that had to be removed,” Newgent said. In addition, damage was heavy from softball-sized hail, he said. At its peak, the incident had 644 emergency responders on an incident team.

Emergency response can do just about anything in terms of costs in the first 72 hours of an incident. But after that, expense documentation, such as fuel, labor hours and materials purchased, where purchased and why, must be made to receive federal reimbursement, Newgent said.

He recommended counties have annual contracts that would allow companies to do work such as debris removal in the event of an emergency. He also suggested establishing annuals contract for supplying and servicing portable toilets in emergency areas.  

Jerry Sears of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security said it takes about $3.28 per person of expenses for a county to become eligible for federal reimbursement funds. For the state of Indiana, that threshold is $8.5 million.

In that scenario, Vigo County would have to have about $330,000 minimum in documented damages to qualify. However, Sears encourages every county to immediately submit documented expenses, even if just a small about, such as $50,000. If enough counties submit documented expenses, it could allow the state to reach its threshold and be able to provide funding to some affected counties.

Tom High, of the Honey Creek Fire Department and member of District 7, suggests using GPS-based cameras to document locations of damage. Fox also recommends that fire departments in counties maintain several sets of “old-fashioned” paper maps as well as aerial view maps to be distributed to emergency response teams. Fox said a lack of maps was an issue in responding to Henryville.

Newgent and Fox each recommended emergency that responders be trained on National Incident Management System to learn acronyms, forms and requirements of the federal Department of Homeland Security to obtain reimbursement of up to 75 or sometime 80 percent of costs.

District 7 Commander Melissa Buell said Indiana has 10 districts statewide under the Department of Homeland Security, and each district is to support a type 3 incident management team. A type 3 team includes trained personnel from departments, agencies and organizations who can respond for fire, emergency medical services, service support, law enforcement and incident management statewide or in the eight-county region of District 7 . Buell said District 7, which includes Vigo County, is the first and only state-certified type 3 team.

Type 1 is the highest designation, with a federal and state certification, from a team that can be deployed nationwide because it has more more incident management training and experience,



Reporter Howard Greninger can be contacted at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.

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