Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
By TERESA ANN BOECKEL
The Evening Sun (Hanover, Pa.)
Judith Selender was getting ready to go to work last week when she caught a television news alert warning people to stay inside because of a chemical fire at Adhesives Research Inc. near Glen Rock.
But the alert was so quick that the New Freedom woman couldn’t grasp what it saying. She wanted to stay home with her sons and pets if officials decide to evacuate residents during the fire Jan. 10.
So she picked up the phone and started calling officials, trying to get more information. But no one answered at her local police department or the York County Emergency Management Agency.
“There was just no one at home,” Selender said, adding that it left her feeling anxious. “I did want to know how serious it was.”
York County officials expect smoother communication in a few months when a new technology will allow them to reach residents during an emergency with a recorded message.
Selender’s complaint didn’t surprise Raj S. Dandage, chairman of the American Disaster Preparedness Foundation in Chicago. His nonprofit organization recently conducted a survey to see how prepared the 50 largest cities across the country are to respond to a disaster.
The survey found that some communities have not put enough effort or money into developing ways to warn the public about emergencies and educating the public on how to respond, Dandage said.
It takes a two-pronged approach to warn people, Dandage wrote in an e-mail.
First, communities need to implement technologies, such as Reverse 911, he said. Second, they need to educate the public about how the technology works and what to do in the event of an emergency.
What is Reverse 911?
York County will be getting Reverse 911 in a few months, said Bernadette Lauer, spokeswoman for the York County Office of Emergency Management. It would have come in handy last week during the chemical fire.
The technology allows emergency officials to record a message warning people about an emergency and what to do. The system then calls homes in a specified area with the message.
Centre County has a similar system and has used it, for example, to notify residents about a prison inmate who escaped.
“It worked exactly the way it was supposed to,” said Dan Tancibok, director of 911 for Centre County.
It could also be used to alert the community about a search for a missing child or an Alzheimer’s patient who walked away from home.
But the technology has some pitfalls. For example, some databases use phone directories, so someone with an unlisted number would not get the call, Tancibok said.
Neither would people who have only cell phones.
Local officials plan to allow cell phone users to register their numbers so they could receive information, Lauer said.
York County wanted to buy the technology in the past but didn’t have the money in the budget for it, she said.
The South Central Pennsylvania Terrorism Task Force is paying for it. It will cost $95,000 for the program plus five years of maintenance.
More than one source
Communities cannot rely on just one technology to deliver the information, Dandage said. They need to use multiple methods in an attempt to reach a wide group of people.
“Nobody has yet found a good way to warn everybody,” he said.
Besides Reverse 911, communities can use warning sirens with different sounds to indicate what kind of emergency is happening. They can use Amber Alert messages to warn people traveling on the roadways.
And they can use the news media to relay information.
Technology exists to alert people even by e-mail, pager, cell phones or personal data assistant, but government faces problems with privacy concerns.
Some communities have gotten around that by allowing people to voluntarily register their contact information through a Web site if they want to get information during an emergency, said Brian Turley, president of Strohl Systems in King of Prussia.
Not only do communities have to put the technology in place, but they also have to educate the public about it. Otherwise, people will be wary of it or will not know what it means, Dandage said.
He believes that emergency management agencies should be staffed around the clock. And, he said, communities should have a plan to physically go into neighborhoods and notify people if necessary.
It requires a lot of effort and money, he said.
Education is key, and local emergency management officials say they have been working to do that.
They offer Community Emergency Response Team classes, said Jeff Joy, a municipal planner and trainer with the York County Emergency Management Agency. They teach people what to do during an emergency.
Information also has been distributed through newspapers.
People also have to make the effort to learn what to do before an emergency occurs, he said.
Other options
Each municipality has an emergency management coordinator who can be contacted for information during an emergency, Lauer said. Residents can call their municipalities to find out who the designated person is and how to reach them.
Or people can call 911 if an emergency situation exists, Joy said. Dispatchers can direct people how to get information, such as calling an emergency operations center if one is open.
He warns, though, that people should not use 911 to get directions or for other non-emergency related questions.
Emergency officials opened an emergency operations center in Shrewsbury borough last week during the Adhesives Research fire. The emergency management coordinator for Springfield Township was driving a fire engine and was at the fire.
Emergency management coordinators or their deputies from New Freedom, Glen Rock, Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury Township and North Hopewell Township met in Shrewsbury borough’s municipal building to assist those at the fire scene.
People could have called in to the borough office that night for information, said John Fornadel, the emergency management coordinator for Shrewsbury. Or, if someone in North Hopewell, for example, had called 911, the person could have been told the township’s emergency management coordinator could be reached in Shrewsbury, Joy said.
They will share the information they have at the time and offer any assistance that they can, Fornadel said. But it’s tough to predict what will happen in the hours to come, so people will have to make some judgments as to how they react.
“The situation can go downhill - you don’t know,” he said.
Rich Zambito, emergency management coordinator for Glen Rock, said he alerted council members to the fire last week. They also can be a source of information.
Zambito said someone also was answering the phone at his home that night.
People should have lists of contact numbers, including fire departments and elected officials, in case an emergency arises.