NORTHBOROUGH LOCAL EMERGENCY PLANNING COMMITTEE (NLEPC) MEETING MINUTES
October 9, 2008 10:00 A.M. Northborough Fire Department 11 Pierce Street Northborough, MA 01532
Chief Durgin called the meeting to order at 10:10 a.m. and introduced himself, John Coderre, newly appointed Town Administrator, and Nancy Lepore, Fire Department Hazardous Materials Assistant. Meeting participants introduced themselves to attendees. A paper copy of the NLEPC Hazardous Materials Plan (Hazmat Plan), all 2007 Tier II Emergency and Hazardous Chemical forms, the annual legal ad and MA Department of Conservation and Recreation Hop Brook Dam flooding maps were available for viewing.
Old Business - Copies of the 03/20/08 meeting minutes were available for attendees. A motion was made, seconded to forgo a reading of these meeting minutes, and was passed by a majority vote of attendees. A motion was then made, seconded, and passed by a majority of attendees to accept the meeting minutes as written.
Review of planning information received to date – Ms. Lepore relayed that all 2007 reporting year Tier II forms have been submitted by facilities in town, and including all required Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). Site plans were submitted by some facilities.
Most Special Locations in town have submitted information as requested through the use of a Special Locations Survey. Many gave copies of their Emergency Plans. These Plans are reviewed for compatibility with the town emergency plans and procedures. Special Locations are identified as facilities having individuals who cannot fend for themselves in time of emergency.
All other locations in town where the public gathers and could potentially be affected by an emergency Hazmat release were reviewed again for their accuracy and completeness in the planning process concerning emergency contacts, their locations, size and capacity. Examples are: churches, public areas such as shopping centers, and public parks.
Review of Emergency Plans to date – Ms. Lepore spoke of the ongoing review of the town Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP) and the Hazmat Plan. Names, titles, contact numbers are being updated both in town government, private facilities and other agencies and facilities that the plans must interface with such as Poison Control, Utility Companies, the American Red Cross, Media outlets, Hospitals and others. LEPC training schedules are updated with current training concluded by emergency services and town government members. Currently, the update of information is
mostly completed and has been logged into the eCEMP (Electronic Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan) website that includes the Hazmat Plan. The updates are not reflected in the paper copy of the plan yet but are expected to be within one to two weeks. It was explained that Compact Discs are kept of the updated plans downloaded from the eCEMP reflecting changes to date.
She explained that within the Hazmat Plan Annexes A through J remain relatively the same and Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 encompasses the majority of necessary changes. Appendix 1 contains the Hazard Analysis for the town with a summary of critical infrastructure and including both a summary and a profile of hazardous facilities, public venues, special locations transportation and health and medical facilities. Appendix 2 contains attachments to Annexes A through J and the Basic Plan. Appendix 1 and 2 affect the Mapping Section with its lists of facilities such as health and medical and special locations, evacuation routes, critical infrastructure, and fixed hazardous materials facilities. The Mapping section is being updated to reflect these changes and reworked to be
easier to read. A problem with the system is that the maps are small and colored identification flags mark each site and sometimes these flags overlap when the map is printed for use in a paper copy of the plan.
eCEMP – Electronic Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan – Data for the CEMP and the Hazmat Plan are input on line into a secure, pass worded server with access provided by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA). These eCEMP plans are archived quarterly by MEMA and held for an indefinite period of time on their server. The plans are compiled from templates provided by MEMA and based upon the state and federal requirements for emergency plans. The input of information from the community is entered in a different format than the downloaded plans appear. Information added into eCEMP is distributed electronically in a preformatted manner to place the information in the portions of the finished plan where they should appear. Downloaded plans appear in groups of electronic
files (ex. MS Word and .pdf). The eCEMP plans are accessible to town, MEMA and other officials from any computer with internet access and CD copies are held by named officials in town as well as 2 additional paper copies.
EMDAC – Emergency Management Directors Advisory Committee – EMDAC is a committee comprised of approximately twenty Emergency Management Directors and personnel from communities of all sizes around the state and fourteen MEMA employees. It was formed in December 2007 to create an easy to use handbook as a guide for Emergency Management Officials and Community Officials explaining the role and duties of an emergency manager. Nancy Lepore, representing Northborough, was invited by MEMA to be a member of the EMDAC. The handbook was completed in Spring 2008 and was printed and
distributed to all MA communities including a CD handbook copy. It includes a listing of documents pertinent for use by emergency managers and town officials and a listing of websites for further information. The handbook and its documents can be viewed at www.mass.gov/mema and click on EMD Advisory Committee.
The EMDAC has remained a working group since then to find ways to manage the user-friendliness of required emergency management plans and the vast amount of data that needs to be collected for emergency management plans including the CEMP, the Hazmat Plan, Continuity of Government Plans (COOP) and many others. The EMDAC is exploring ways to create easy to use plans and to minimize the time and effort to input individualized information into the various plans to eliminate the redundancy of inputting the same information many times into many plans.
Two subcommittees of the EMDAC were formed: the Data Modeling and Documentation Management (DMDM) subcommittee and the Strategic Management subcommittee. The DMDM subcommittee is looking at all types of individualized data fields essential for inclusion in a community’s CEMP and Hazmat Plan that are also pertinent to other types of emergency plans and comparing them to currently available data fields in the CEMP and Hazmat Plan. Data field examples would be: names and phone numbers of contacts, and amounts and types of available equipment. To accomplish this, they are first looking at all the types of plans, ex. COOP, which would most closely coincide in importance with the role of a CEMP and Hazmat Plan, and then create a master set of data fields from them which
could be used throughout all related emergency plans. Plan managers could input data once for distribution into all plans.
The Strategic Management subcommittee is looking at the current electronic composition and information of the CEMP and Hazmat Plan formats and is formulating ways to rewrite the basic templates of the plans to make them user-friendlier to all who have a role defined within them while maintaining federal and state emergency planning guidelines.
Facilities with Persons Needing Assistance in an Emergency Survey – Ms. Lepore explained that emergency plans must include information on facilities with persons who cannot fend for themselves in time of emergency and these special locations are surveyed annually to keep data current. In the past, these surveys were either conducted by mail or by telephone and were time consuming to conduct. The survey was converted to an electronic fill-in-the-blank form this year and emailed to the special locations facilities in town to be electronically completed and returned to the NLEPC. Most facilities quickly returned the survey electronically and statistically the response to the survey was greater than in the past. The electronic survey can also be saved by a facility, updated, and resubmitted easily.
Public Outreach - The tri-fold display for the LEPC will be on public display at the Fire Prevention Fair in October. It is currently on display at town hall. Beaumont/Whitney Place hosted the display at their facility for two weeks in August. Other outreach efforts included a legal notice placed in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette at the end of March for the availability of LEPC information in Northborough. Channel 12, in May, broadcasted a video created by the US Environmental Protection Agency titled “Local Emergency Planning Committees – Guarding the Safety of Your Community” several times. A copy of this video has been placed in the town library for patrons to borrow.
Flood Planning – It was explained by Ms. Lepore that more extensive information has been placed in the town emergency plans via the submittal of two MA Department of Conservation and Recreation Dam Emergency Plans for Cold Harbor Brook Dam and the Hop Brook dam that are SUASCO flood control projects. She also explained that the MA Office of Dam Safety and MEMA have also provided updated information including hazard classifications on the other dams in town both publicly and privately owned.
New Business – Ms. Lepore relayed information from Claudia McGuire, Town Dog Officer, that NEART (Northborough Emergency Animal Rescue Team) met on 9/10 to inventory informational handouts for their Applefest display in September. New handouts include “Pets Inside” stickers for doors and a wallet size “Alert for Pet Owners”. Central Massachusetts Disaster Animal Rescue Team (CMDART) and State of Massachusetts Animal Rescue Team (SMART) deployed members to help manage emergency animal shelters in Texas after Hurricanes Hanna and Ike.
Ms. Lepore mentioned that the town entered agreement with the American Red Cross for the use of the four elementary schools and the Melican Middle School as official ARC disaster shelters. Trinity Church also is an official ARC disaster shelter. Chief Durgin added that Scott Maffioli and Nathan Fiske now head the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). CERT trained in Shelter Management.
Chief Durgin told LEPC members that town personnel have completed National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Incident Command System (ICS) training per current national guidelines and in some cases, personnel have exceeded training level guidelines.
Chief Durgin informed members of enactment of the new state wide plan, MAP (Health Care Mutual Aid Evacuation and Supply Plan), to address emergencies and evacuations in nursing homes and assisted living facilities through mutual aid planning among those facilities and community emergency services.
He spoke of the finalization of a Pandemic Flu Plan including Marlboro Hospital and credited Jamie Terry, Northborough Board of Health Agent, with the formulation of an Emergency Dispensing Site Plan for Northborough that is upheld as a model for planning in the state. And, he mentioned Ms. Terry’s many efforts in the recruitment of a Medical Reserve Corps in the town to assist with emergency response should these plans be activated.
Chief Durgin reported that Reverse 911 is in place through the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office and that it can be activate town wide or as a radius around an area of interest. It was activated in the search for an Alzheimer patient recently.
John Coderre suggested that a pamphlet could be sent to townspeople so they would have pertinent information available to them prior to an emergency including for example: contact phone numbers, websites, town shelter identification, and access to emergency broadcast systems.
The meeting adjourned at 11:10 A.M.
Respectfully submitted,
Nancy Lepore, Coordinator
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