Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Emergency planning draws flak

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 05:40:50 -0500

Emergency planning draws flak

By John Hilton, March 5, 2003

Eileen West says South Middleton Township officials are unprepared for a major emergency
and thus are
"showing a disregard for the safety of its citizens."

Eileen West says South Middleton Township officials are unprepared for a major emergency
and thus are
"showing a disregard for the safety of its citizens."

West resigned Monday from the township's Emergency Services Committee after weeks of
friction over the
panel's makeup and the township's emergency operations plan.

In an open letter to supervisors posted Monday on the website www.bsvillager.com, West
accuses the board of
playing politics with the committee.

A private contractor for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other
agencies, West headed
up the drafting of the school district's own revised Emergency Operations Plan, which was
adopted Feb. 17.

A school board member who is running for a second four-year term, West has two related
concerns —
appointing a permanent school district official as a voting member on the committee and
updating its
emergency plan.

"I hope the word gets around and the citizens start applying pressure (on the township).
We don't live in the
same world we did two years ago."

An adviser

Formed in 1992, the committee brings together all of the emergency services providers
operating in the
township into a single-focused technical advisory group. It provides supervisors with
technical information to
help them make decisions on emergency services issues.

The committee is comprised of representatives from the three fire companies and two EMS
services that serve
the township, along with the emergency management coordinator, three township citizens at
large and others.
Township officials attend meetings as non-voting members.

Supervisor Duff Manweiler said the committee was created to be "non-political." He adds it
is not fair to make
instant changes without consulting the committee first.

Supervisors discussed the issue for the first time last week and Supervisor Tom Faley
proposed adding school
district Superintendent Patricia Sanker and township manager Barbara Wilson to the
committee as voting
members.

Sanker is not a good candidate because of the workload she already has, West says.

The committee will look at the proposal to add members and make a recommendation to
supervisors, says
Supervisor Ron Reeder, a board liaison to the committee.

"We're going to continue to work with the school district like we work with any other
entity that employs a lot of
people in the township," he adds.

Rely on district

In an emergency, West says, the township will rely on the school district for:

* District facilities for shelter space.
* Hand-held radios. The district has six per school, plus 70 Nextel phones, which can be
used as two-way
radios.
* Standby contracts to purchase emergency supplies. The district does have agreements in
place for emergency
supplies and is actively pursuing additional agreements with local suppliers.
* Dedicated computers for the emergency management function.
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather radios. The district has
at least one on each
campus.

No plan

West faults the township for not having "an up-to-date emergency operations plan."

She says she wrote the township last summer to stress that its plan "was in desperate need
of revision," but
was ignored.

She says there are several basic problems. For example, the municipal building meeting
room is supposed to
serve as an emergency operation center, yet it has only two telephone lines. Also, the
plan calls on the school
district to provide busing.

"We don't control those buses and haven't for a long time," West says.

Any plan developed will be insufficient if it is written without input from additional
sources, she says, including
the school district, fire police, state police, medical providers, any facility in the
township that handles hazardous
materials, and others.

The committee is busy updating the plan and is making progress in conjunction with the
American Red Cross
and the county emergency operations plan, Reeder says.

Manweiler suggests the committee has not welcomed all of West's suggestions in recent
meetings, prompting
her split with the panel.

"Some of the things she wants, the committee doesn't agree with," he says.

"I know what it takes to put together an emergency operations plan," West counters. "My
guess is they don't want
the participation of other entities."

A greater schism?

Dissatisfaction with the committee first surfaced when the panel declined to re-appoint
former municipal fire
chief George Stapleton.

The 2-year-old system of having a municipal fire chief in charge of all township fire
scenes was scrapped amid
reports of personality conflicts among the three fire companies — South Middleton, Union
Fire Co. of Carlisle
and Citizen's Fire Co. of Mt. Holly Springs.

Supervisors approved the committee's suggestion for a "fire and rescue service
administrator" reporting to the
township manager and the supervisors. Control of fire scenes was returned to the fire
chiefs within their
respective territories.

http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2003/03/05/news/news05.txt
--
    "NEXTEL-1 IT'S NOT JUST NEXTEL"
  Note The New address
Subscribe to Nextel-1: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL-1

  "NEXTEL2 FOR iDEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS"
Subscribe to Nextel2: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL2

  "WIRELESS FORUM HOMELAND SECURITY GROUP"
     The Complete Resource for Wireless Homeland Security.
Subscribe to WFHSG:  http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/WFHSG