Getting to know each other ... before disaster strikes

Because an emergency is a bad time for introductions, police, fire and corporate leaders from across Lake and Cook counties are getting to know each other before trouble strikes.

The Lake-Cook Regional Critical Incident Partnership is a mouthful of a title, but it practices organization at its most simple level.

"A disaster is no time to be handing out business cards," said James Joseph, the head of the Center for Security Intelligence in Carol Stream, a business consultant. "We have this group to identify and acquaint ourselves with the people who will be coming to help us, and learn what we have to do to help them,"

Formed in 2007, the partnership recently was honored with the Michael Shanahan Award for Excellence in Public and Private Cooperation by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Deerfield Police Cmdr. Rick Weil said the group meets to discuss likely responses to a variety of emergencies, and to train people on both sides for what to expect.

"We have to know the layout of the facilities we are going to from top to bottom," Weil said. "We also need to know who we have to talk to and where the guy who has the keys to the doors is."

More than 50 corporations and public agencies are members of the group, which stretches from Evanston to the south to Waukegan to the north, Weil said.

They participate in facility tours of the large companies, getting to know the where and the who through "tabletop exercises" of various disaster scenarios and other discussions.

"My car is the command car at any number of situations that may develop," said Rob Ugaste, assistant chief of the Lincolnshire-Riverwoods Fire Protection District.

"I have got to have someone from the corporation, who can get me the answers I need, sitting next to me in that car," he said. "At the same time, that person has to be someone who can get the answers I give to the questions he is asking, to the people in the corporation that need to know."

The group was organized using guidelines developed by Michigan State University for the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Lake-Cook organization is the only one using the model in Illinois, but 43 groups in more than 20 other states use the guidelines.

Weil said there has not yet been a test of the organization in a real emergency, but a large-scale drill that will provide a picture of how well it functions is planned for later this year.

The participants said the group also is a valuable resource for the corporations.

"If something happens on our campus, like a fire or a violent incident, one of the things we have to know is a reasonable estimate of when we will be back in business," said Motorola's Robert Denecke, security director at the Libertyville facility. "A shutdown of our operations could have far-reaching consequences, and it is important for us to know as much as we can about recovery."

It is important that support of the group comes from the very top of the corporations, Johnson said, because it so far has operated without a formal budget.

"If there is some training to do, perhaps Hewitt can let us use one of their conference rooms and pay for lunch," he said. "If a person at a company needs time away from his desk to attend a meeting, he has got to know it is all right with the boss."

When public officials are confident in the abilities of people inside corporations to deal with emergencies, it can make responses more time-efficient.

Bob Grum, emergency response coordinator for the Lake County Health Department, said he hosted a training session for group members on pandemic responses last fall as the H1N1 flu virus loomed.

"We went out and prepared people at each of the companies to be able to distribute the vaccine for all of their employees and their families," Grum said. "That took 150,000 people off our potential distribution list, and we could do it because we knew who would be in charge and were confident they could handle it."

In the future, Weil said, he wants the group to expand to include smaller businesses with fewer employees who could also benefit from the programs.

He said he is pleased with the progress the group has made so far, and sees the recent Shanahan award as a stamp of approval.

"The last two critical incident response programs that got the Shanahan were based in New York City and Toronto," he said. "I think it speaks very highly of our efforts that they would come to a collection of villages in northern Illinois and find the same type of excellence."