Ready for disaster? Geneva officials brush up on what to do
The Geneva Emergency Operations Center was abuzz with activity Friday morning, dealing with the aftermath of a mock tornado striking the west side.
City Administrator Mary McKittrick was calling the St. Charles city administrator, to see if it would be OK to set up a volunteer-staging area in the parking lot of the Meijer store on Randall Road, and if he would call Meijer.
Another city worker was calling RentalMax to see what kind of jacks and power tools were available. A deputy fire chief was trying to find out what size tires were needed for two firetrucks with flats.
Reports rolled in that Delnor Hospital had been struck and was trying to transfer patients to other hospitals. And where would parents of children at two damaged elementary schools and the high school go to pick up their children?
It was all part of a drill designed to improve responders' skills should a real disaster happen. Even this reporter played a role, unexpectedly, as city communications coordinator Kevin Stahr practiced conducting a press briefing.
They were divided into teams for logistics, operations, finance/communications and planning.
The mock emergency was the first Geneva has conducted in about 10 years, said Scott Spencer, emergency services and disaster agency coordinator.
Evaluating the drill was Batavia Fire Department Deputy Chief Ed Jancauskas. He'll provide a report to Geneva officials.
All city departments would send representatives to the operations center in the case of a disaster. That includes the finance department, which would be charged with keeping track of what is being spent, so the city could submit those expenses to the federal and state governments for reimbursement.
So everybody was to write down all requests and actions, preferably on National Incident Management Systems form 213. NIMS is routinely used for all kinds of public-safety crises, such as fires. But even if they just scrawl something on a scrap of paper, that would be saved and recorded.
Friday's drill already had Geneva Deputy Fire Chief Mark Einwich planning to do something: Compile a list of tire sizes for fire department vehicles, to be kept with several people and in the vehicles.
He said that in the Plainfield tornado in 1990, most of that department's vehicles were quickly disabled from flat tires from running over debris. Geneva public works keeps some spares on hand, and they or a commercial tire dealer could come out to change a flat on a fire truck or ambulance - but they have to know what size tire to bring.