East Longmeadow Local Emergency Planning Committee

Report: Findings of Needs Assessment Survey completed following the Town Hall Building Disaster Exercise.

Executive Summary

At the tabletop exercise organized by the East Longmeadow Local Emergency Planning Committee on Thursday, April 26, 2001 in the East Longmeadow High School Auditorium members of the LEPC and department heads and/or key members of departments from the East Longmeadow Town Hall met to assess the needs of local town government in the event of a catastrophic disaster to the facility known as Town Hall.

The goal of the exercise was to assess the needs of local town government as it relates to the physical loss of the town hall facility and its contents and how the loss might impact the operation of the different departments associated with town hall.

There were two objectives developed to meet the goal. One was to coordinate a unified operation to minimize the fire loss potential of the town hall and the immediate exposures and assess the impact to mid-week morning conditions associated with traffic, business operations and school transportation issues that might arise in the event of an incident in the center of East Longmeadow.

The second was to evaluate the preparedness of local town government in the event that access to the physical building is deemed untenable and the loss of the contents of the building is considered total and irretrievable from this site.

Statement of Need

Annually the East Longmeadow Local Emergency Planning Committee is required, under state and federal legislation, to review the emergency preparedness plan for the community. Originally designed to evaluate the readiness of the community in the event of a hazardous material incident, the state has recognized that by and large the same plan may be useful in several different emergency scenarios. In the past this committee has exercised the plan not only for haz-mat incidents but mass casualty school bus incidents, hurricane incidents, and terrorism incidents at a public school. In order to evaluate the plan this year it was decided by the committee to have a tabletop scenario and at the same time assess the preparedness of local town government.

The committee’s main focus was to have the different agencies in the building determine what their primary roles and functions are relative to daily, weekly, monthly and yearly operations. Next, determine the equipment and record keeping items needed so that in the eventuality of a disaster occurring at the town hall, local government would be affected minimally.

Project Description

Separated into two phases, the tabletop exercise described below was to first, determine the readiness and communication of the public safety agencies for the Town of East Longmeadow and how they would coordinate efforts to mitigate this particular incident. The second phase was designed to assess the preparedness of local town government in terms for what would be needed and how long it would take before town government would be functional.

Scenario-Phase One:

It is early Wednesday morning, September 12, 2001. Late summer thunderstorms were reported by weather forecasters to come through the area in the early morning hours. As predicted at approximately 3:00 am, winds pick up and the temperature changed dramatically downward as the storm front approaches the community. Lightening is seen in the distance as well as the sound of thunder. It is not long before the rain begins to fall and the lightening and thunder approach with greater frequency and intensity. The temperature continues to fall and the winds are howling.

Suddenly and simultaneously, one large flash of lightening and clap of thunder roars through the air as if two locomotives have crashed. The earth shakes for several seconds. There are several less horrifying claps of thunder as the rain continues to fall. The time is approximately 3:30am. By 4:00 am the storm has subsided and moved on in an easterly pattern. Lightening can still be seen and the thunder is little more than a faint noise in the distance. Fortunately, there were no unusual or storm related calls to the dispatch desk at the police department during the storm. Electric power to the center of the town was interrupted at the height of the storm activity. Police notified the power company.

Just after 4:00 am a call comes to the dispatch desk from a caller driving by on his way into American Saw from the city. He is reporting smoke coming from the eaves of the town hall. The police dispatcher tones for the fire department and notifies the cruisers on the road of the situation. It is now 4:03 am. The police arrive on scene and report heavy fire on the first floor of the structure. Both the chief and deputy chief arrive at 4:08 am calling off with fire on all floors and a working fire assignment. Engine-2 reports on the air at 4:09 with five firefighters and a captain. Upon arrival to the scene, fire is now coming from the roof area near the bell tower.

Representatives for the LEPC from the following agencies were in attendance:

Fire: Chief Bob Wallace and Deputy Chief Rich Hawley

Police: Sgt. Walter Niznik

DPW: Silvio Baruzzi

Board of Selectmen: Kim Wiezbicki

MEMA: Bruce Augusti

EL-EMA: Frank Morrisino and Capt. Brian Falk

Schools: Tom McGowan

Industry: Mike Maheux

Scenario-Phase Two:

By 9:00 am the situation is declared to be under control. Unfortunately, the building is determined to be a total loss. All that remains is the outside shell of the brownstone structure exterior. It will be days before an investigation is complete as to the cause of the fire but preliminary indications suggest that the passing thunderstorm may be the contributing factor.

In the meantime, local town government must continue to operate. Taxes need to be collected, payroll needs to be met, continued growth of the community continues as contractors build new homes, and the business of town government moves forward. But with the contents of the town hall destroyed by the fire, how and what will it take to get town government operational as quickly as possible? What resources and equipment would be needed and how soon would it be before government could function, even if it were just the essentials. What are the priorities? What type of action plan would need to be put into place? What would it take to run the day-to-day operations?

Department heads and key personnel present representing the different departments of Town Hall include the following:

Selectmen’s Office: Shirley Herrick, report submitted

MIS: John Somsen, report submitted

Accounting: Donald St. George, report submitted

Assessors: Peggy Wolcott and Linda Gerbert, report submitted

Building: not present

Town Clerk: Don Plourde and Rosina Goodrich, report submitted

Planning: not present, report submitted

Conservation: not present

DPW and Engineering: Silvio Baruzzi and Shirley Tancrati, report submitted

Results

The single largest concern is for the loss of records that have not been copied or backed-up into storage systems. Records dating back only as far as two to three years may have been scanned or placed on computer-based back-up systems. Records that are older, yet still utilized on a regular basis in several different departments as well as transferable to several different departments, have not been duplicated or placed in safe on-site or off-site storage facilities. Once these documents are lost they will not be replicated without great expense to the community if replaceable at all. This would pose a great hardship to the community in terms of accountability for the Town.

Specifically, each department at the town hall had the opportunity to participate in a discussion of needs and concerns the following is a synopsis of the dialogue that took place and the survey documentation:

The selectmen’s office recognizes the concern for the preservation of historical documents, issuance of licenses through that office, and the need to reestablish lines of communications with the community as swiftly as possible. The interest for secure storage of the vital documents is the greatest concern.

Management Information Services assures that if the mainline (WAN – Wide Area Network) for operations is lost, that WAN access may be gained through the school’s computer system. There is a back-up domain controller at the police station that would serve all controls. A cooperative arrangement between local government and any external source within the system has been established in the event that additional computers need to be acquired. Data processing center should be in a safe and secure environment including fire resistant facility with appropriate suppression system and excess limitations.

In the Accounting Department, most of the records are filed in fireproof cabinets. There are still some documents that need that protection but due to space limitations cannot be accommodated. An alternative to storage would be the establishing of electronic payroll. This would reduce the amount of hard copy by having it reduced to electronic storage. The possibility of cost savings could be realized and the storage of archival material could be accomplished.

The Assessor’s Office indicated that a majority of their records and documents are upgraded on a continual basis referencing the previous notations with very little replication at the local or state level to reference. The need for back-up maps and current appraisal cards, loss of tax information, and mandated maintenance of records for a minimum of seven years are serious concerns for this department. The Assessor’s Office and Department of Public Works have begun to work together to resolve some of the mapping issues but time and cost are major factors toward completing this project.

The Town clerk’s office identifies the need for vault space for the storage of critical records. The Clerk is seeking professional advice on how to best preserve these records for the long term. Critical to their operation is the paying of bills and receiving of funds into this office. A line of credit would need to be established in the event of this nature through a special town meeting. Various licenses are issued through the town clerk’s office and a phone call to the printer would manage this area of concern. Statistics, voter information, and census information is current with the state officials so any record loss would be minimal to a monthly or yearly limitation.

In the Department of Public Works, the paper work surrounding the care of the infrastructure of the community is maintained. There are maps and documents that site the water and sewer system for the community. The Superintendent has utilized part-time staff to begin the copying process yet this is far from being complete. Additionally, issues of payroll for this particular department are initiated in this office as well as the issuance of water and sewer billing.

Planning Board concerns center on the need to refer back to documents for proper consideration on conservation, preservation and zoning issues. There is worry regarding the archiving of documents and maps and time facts associated with retrieval.

It was recognized that the physical structure needed to “relocate” town government was a key component toward resuming government. Several options were discussed. At present the police department has open space available in the downstairs area at their facility. Other options included spreading the different agencies among the other town buildings (i.e. fire, council on aging, schools). MEMA suggested that once the Board of Selectmen declares a state of emergency that they will make available any resources necessary including but not limited to having mobile trailers delivered to the community as temporary facilities.

East Longmeadow Emergency Management (EL-EMA) has the capability of having the telecommunication provider bring in a mobile unit as well as redirecting phone line numbers to other locations within the system. Once the town has declared a state of emergency the Director of the EL-EMA becomes the liaison to the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen and the state for additional resource allocations and has the ability to access many other resource components.

Standard office equipment and supplies would need to be purchased.

Appendix A is the format and information submitted by each department to assess their particular needs.

Conclusions

The different departments of the town hall are a representative microcosm of the expansion and growth of the community. The people who comprise these departments at the Town Hall are genuinely concerned for the historical as well as the practical need for most of the records that are kept at the Town Hall. The records that may not be replicated or would be cost prohibitive to replace need to be copied or formatted to an alternative source and stored securely on-site or off-site. Back-up systems for the records should be a top priority. It is recognized that many of the departments are interdependent and provide a service that only town government can offer. As cost prohibitive as it might seem should even one of the record-keeping components fail the system it could be potentially devastating to the operation of town government if safe guards were not in place.

Some departments have begun the process of duplicating records. It was stated that at least one department has hired part-time staff or is using students from the high school who show the commitment to community service to come in and assist with replication of records either electronically or through copying. This process will remain protracted. Some departments are assessing the benefits to Geographical Information Services (GIS) and electronic storage systems.

Business/Industry’s role was limited in this exercise but the comments are no less relevant. Scanning and/or electronic storage system maintenance is an option. If the Town is receptive to a GIS system, for the making of hard copies of archived maps, plots plans and storage in a secure remote area, this may be more cost effective.

It was realized that personality issues would have to be set aside and open communications established at all levels of local town government for the interest to mitigate this type of extraordinary circumstance to a successful conclusion.

Although this particular exercise, showed the impact a natural disaster (thunder storm) may have on a building, it is not inconceivable for the facility to be greatly effected by a man-made incident (leaving a coffee machine on, over burdened electrical system, etc). The infrastructure of the facility needs to be observed closely monitoring for signs of fatigue, over-usage and/or over dependence. Early and proper monitoring systems with appropriate back-up systems in place will greatly assist in the reduction or loss potential. Housekeeping techniques and preventive maintenance programs would reduce the risk of potential devastation to local government.

On behalf of the LEPC, I extend my appreciation to the many people who assisted with this exercise and who participated in this process. Thanks to principal, assistant principal, staff and the teachers at the high school for allowing the opportunity to show the students how local town government functions. Thanks to the members of the departments whose time and input was important to making a complete and accurate assessment. Thanks also to the members of the LEPC for taking time from their busy schedule to meet the needs of the community. I extend my gratitude to the Board of Selectmen for their continued support to the Local Emergency Planning Committee.

Respectfully submitted,

Tom McGowan

Chair EL-LEPC

June 2001