Local Disaster Response-An Interview With Eric Frank

In the event of a natural disaster, the first form of official relief a person usually gets comes from their local government. We interviewed Eric Frank, the Emergency Coordinator for the Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency located in Vancouver, Washington about what kind of responses local governments are likely to provide during natural disasters.

"All emergencies start and end locally," --Eric Frank, Emergency Coordinator for the Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency

Every single natural disaster begins and ends locally. It starts when weather, infrastructure collapse, or disease halt the everyday activities of a normal life, and it ends when that normal routine is resumed. If a disaster event occurs that is too large for any single first response agency (fire, law enforcement, EMT) to handle, the emergency management portion of the Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency (CRESA) activates and steps in to manage the situation.

"When people call 911, CRESA's role is taking the 911 calls and dispatching law or fire, but if it's a larger incidence than those agencies can handle on their own, that's when CRESA gets involved," said Eric Frank, CRESA's Emergency Coordinator. Frank explains CRESA's process for several different disasters that could impact Clark County.

1. Flood

CRESA911 / Via Flickr: 101637983@N04

Frank says that managing emergencies relating to floods does not entail one single plan. He reports that CRESA does not have a non emergency number for calling law enforcement––“everything goes through 911.” I would assume people would be calling if there was water standing in the streets, storm drains and underpasses are flooded, things like that, mudslide or water coming through their yard, something significant showing this is a little more rain than we would get normally,” said Frank. He continued, saying that for floods there is little CRESA can do aside from rescue people who are in need of help. “It’s really difficult because riverfront houses are private property, you know when you live close to a river, so hopefully you have flood insurance,” he said. In a flood CRESA’s primary goal would be to coordinate the different first responder agencies to block roads and take note of impacted areas, trying to clear streets and mark areas that are unsafe until after the waters recede.

2. Earthquake

CRESA911 / Via Flickr: 101637983@N04

“If we had a major earthquake in the area things are going to be pretty chaotic for a short period of time, we hope people know what to do during the shaking when it starts,” he said. CRESA’s job immediately after the quake has abated is to assess the damage to their facility to make sure it is still operational. If the 911 call center and surrounding emergency communication infrastructure are damaged, an outside county center can pick up the 911 calls that will sure to be incoming.

If they are not, Frank says: “first thing is to assess damage from that earthquake, what is still standing what is not, from roadways and buildings to water and electrical.”

“Surveying how much damage is done, depending on what is still operation we will be looking at social media, seeing what things look like in different parts of the county,” he continued.

Frank said with an event like an earthquake, it’s not going to be only Clark County impacted, but the surrounding counties and the Portland metro area as well. “Once we can see what lines of communication we have available, we can discuss our best options with surrounding communication centers.

While this damage assessment is going on, CRESA will coordinate the dispatch of police, fire and EMT divisions to begin life saving activities where they are needed. CRESA would also activate their corps of volunteers at this time as well.

“We know there's gonna be fires and life safety issues, those are going to be our priority for our first responders, most likely we are going to be coordinating through radio, working all hands on deck, making sure we can reach who we need to reach.”

3. Long Term Power Outage

Frank said that the benefit of modern technology is that we usually have an indication of when severe weather is going to hit, compared to an earthquake, which happens with very short notice, if it provides any at all. Technology gives members of the community time to prepare to weather the storm.

“Even for severe weather, we have notice in advance, giving us a heads up that something's coming,” Frank said. “ We would be trying to push that message to everybody to be prepared, we hope that people would make sure that their devices are charged, water and food for at least three days, make sure you're ready because we don't know how long it's going to be happening.”

Frank said the danger comes when people do not prepare for a long enough outage. If a power outage lasts longer than two days, food begins to go bad and people begin to worry. “Part of being prepared is letting people know how to eat the food in their homes, what you eat first, use the fridge first then the freezer, then you use canned food, hopefully we can educate people prior to the incident.”

In the event of a long term blackout, CRESA would work on establishing shelters and bringing in the Red Cross to help food and water rations to be supplied to the county. Frank said at minimum, prepared individuals should have food and water for their family everyone in the family including pets for at least three days, special medications, batteries, flashlights, a heating source, and lastly a ways of keeping yourself entertained.

4. Quarantine/Epidemic

"It depends on the disease, but public health emergencies start in the public health department, and Clark County has a really good public health organization," Frank said of epidemic disease. "They would ask us to coordinate message and resources, and on some large public health instance, Ebola or H1N1, pods of medication would be brought into the area to vaccinate people against whatever that would be."

CRESA's main role would be to provide information about where vaccines could be obtained, how to keep yourself healthy, and CRESA would also activate any volunteers with medical training to help at the vaccination pods that would be established.

5. Drought

With regards to drought, CRESA’s role would be more based in response to the side effects of drought like fires and county declarations about water use.

“Our snow pack is very low in Washington State this year, several counties just south of us in Oregon that are in drought,” Frank said.

In the event of large scale wildfires due to the drought, CRESA would help coordinate the other firefighters that would come to the county to fight the blaze.

“If we had multiple fires we would help coordinate those firefighters as they came in, hundreds of firefighters come in for large fires, it takes lots of coordination in creating that little town that pops up, and a lot of resources to bring in trucks and semis that we would coordinate.”

6. Winter Weather

"Fortunately a winter storm we usually get a heads up, and our main job is to push that information for people ahead of time. The message is 'stock up and prepare'.

If there is a no travel recommendation because the roads are treacherous, Frank urges people to stay inside.

If county residents must drive, they should make sure they have access to an emergency kit in their car. "You could be stuck in your vehicle for 6-8 hours, we had that happen a year ago, in Battle Ground people got stuck, and it wasn't even a severe storm, it just hit at the wrong time. Frank said that frequently the icy conditions that cripple drivers and cars also inhibit first responders.

"They couldn't get through into the area in Battle Ground, it doesn't take much to make it so you can be stuck there for some time, so people need to make sure they have food and water in their vehicle, a way of staying warm.

Frank ended his discussion about various threats the community can face by mentioning that disaster is inevitable. " We have been very fortunate that we haven't had that kind of a large scale emergency happen in Clark County in a long time, but that doesn't mean it can't happen today or tomorrow. We need to prepare now, take responsibility now, or we are going to be in big trouble."