By Tim Rowden
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
Police, fire and ambulance district personnel in Jefferson County say they rushed into action when last month’s fierce storms hit the area, but they didn’t get much guidance from the county.
Severe thunderstorms July 19 and 21 knocked out power for thousands of people in Jefferson County and elsewhere in the metropolitan area.
About 30 first responders met Monday in the offices of the Jefferson County Health Department in Arnold to review the county’s response to the storm.
Although individual agencies were able to weather the emergency without any major snags, officials said the response lacked coordination because the county’s Emergency Operations Center in Hillsboro was never used.
“Everybody did their own thing,” said Timothy Pigg, director of public safety for Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Crystal City. “There was no unified command.”
Brian Counsell, Jefferson County’s director of emergency management, said that the operations center was opened after the storm on July 19 but that none of the county’s emergency response agencies had sent representatives to help staff it.
Although some responders said they were never notified that the EOC had been opened, Matt Mayer, chief of the Arnold-based Rock Community Fire Protection District, says first responders in the county are used to operating independently.
“We have a habit of taking care of things ourselves and thinking we don’t need the EOC,” Mayer said.
But Richard Tufts, emergency preparedness planner for the Jefferson County Health Department, says the county and its first-response agencies have to work together to respond effectively to the next emergency.
“Jefferson County is becoming much, much larger than it’s ever been,” Tufts said. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the county’s current population at 213,669.
“We’ve got to get to the point where we’re able to reach over and help each other out,” Tufts said. “With limited resources, we have to be able to work together instead of just taking care of things ourselves.”
Counsell said his office planned to use the county’s 911 Emergency Dispatch system to notify agencies when the Emergency Operations Center opens in the next emergency.
Meanwhile, officials plan to meet again Aug. 30 to set criteria for opening and staffing the EOC and handling communications with agencies on the street.
“It will be a positive thing,” Counsell said. “We have a very large amount of police, fire, EMS, hospital and health department people who are very capable. We have very talented people in those positions. We’ll make it work.”