May 14 Emergency Preparedness Minutes

Emergency Preparedness Committee Meeting (via zoom):  May 14th, 2020

Members present:  Anna Hike-Krueger, Yvette Fleming, Harry Kellogg, John Higney, Roger Lindgren and Owen Polifka
We continued reviewing and updating our Emergency Action Plan.
 
Anna had reviewed the plan after the last meeting’s changes.  She made several recommendations for improving the plan and we proceeded to discuss each of her suggestions.
Her first recommendation was to move the last four items under the objectives of the Town of Bell to the more appropriate Incident Commander’s Responsibilities, since they relate more to an actual emergency response.
Under Preparedness, Anna suggested changing Past Emergency Experience to Potential Emergencies.  We all agreed to that title change as well as deleting the third and fourth paragraphs dealing with fires isolating certain areas and flooding’s impact on transportation.  These issues are already addressed in the individual disaster sections under Hazard and Risk Potential.
In addition, under the Hazard and Risk Potential section, other changes were discussed and finalized.  We decided not to attempt to list the various types of emergencies or natural disasters in any kind of probability or priority since “likely to happen” is difficult to determine.  However, we agreed that the list order be consistent with the order of the descriptions that followed.
Yvette pointed out that Loss of Service/Power could also apply to EMS availability.  We decided to keep this section as Power Outage and add a section relating to Loss of Service.  Yvette will re-write a section on  Loss of Service and it will added to the list and description under the Hazard and Risk Potential section.
John offered to add a section on tornados and combine it with the issue of straight line winds  (Straight Line Winds/Tornadoes) replacing the Windstorm section.
Under the Lake Superior Seiche section, Anna pointed out that we are missing the conclusion of the statement regarding the neighborhood task group leaders (the Emergency Preparedness Resource Persons) observing and reporting erosions.
It was suggested that we remove the phone number of the Bayfield County Emergency Government from the Town of Bell Resource List.  However, Yvette pointed out that even though the number was duplicated elsewhere, it was so important to an emergency operation that it’s duplication is valid.  Hence, we elected to keep the phone number in the resource list.
As per Anna’s recommendation, we will move the Line of Succession list to the Concept of Operations section under the Emergency Operations Plan Responsibilities paragraph.
Under the Incident Commander’s Responsibilities, we made adjustments to the order of the bullet points to reflect the order of importance.
It was reported that the dry wells to be displayed on the Town of Bell Resource Map were somewhat less than operational therefore will not be included on the map.
Roger will check with Mary Beth Tillmans regarding the existence of the town’s Great Seal so that it can be properly affixed to the Town of Bell Disaster Declaration (Attachment I).
Under the third attachment, we will change the wording to:  Adoption of the Town of Bell Emergency Preparedness Committee Emergency Action Plan.
Upon review of the Town of Bell Alternative Routes Map, Yvette suggested adding Lenawee Road heading south from Herbster.  Owen suggested adding Church Corner Road as well as Ondossagon Road to the map.
At the next meeting we will seek to incorporate Kurt’s newest survey results as well as discuss the various neighborhoods and their EPRPs.
Next meeting:  Thursday, May 28th at 1pm via Zoom.
Respectfully submitted,
Owen