Wildfires, floods, tornadoes, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
Let’s have an honest talk about just how prepared we are for when all hell breaks loose. Or better yet, a small piece of hell breaks loose and goes undetected for any length of time.
Chattanooga is an undeniably unique city in many regards, but as far-out as our beloved town is, it still resides on a chaotic pale blue ball hurdling 67,000 mph through an infinite void and is therefore subject to the same laws of physics and phenomena as any other place.
As a child of the ‘80s I’ve grown up with many large-scale disasters that arguably could have pushed humanity to the brink and signaled the apocalypse countless times over. Atomic Communism gave way to holes in the ozone layer, which took a backseat to Y2K, and then international terrorism. Now it’s global climate change, mass shootings, and past pop-up scares every time the president makes a tweet.
Given the past three decades of near-catastrophic global calamity predictions, it’s a wonder we’ve not all been transformed into doomsday kooks with lead-lined bomb shelters underneath every house.
I believe this is why zombie apocalypse scenarios are so appealing: a disaster that can be fended off with a rake or powerwalk seems much more manageable than, say, a total collapse of infrastructure, or even basic utilities...a thing that Chattanooga experienced very recently.
On the night of September 12th, one of the city’s main water arteries ruptured, leaving some 35,000 connections without water. This included the Aquarium, the UTC campus, and thousands of residents across the city.
Marc Ericson walks us through what happened that night: “Response operations started one hour after the initial incident Thursday night. Key members of our office and Chattanooga Emergency Response agencies began addressing the issue at 11 p.m. and worked through the night to ensure fire suppression could be met throughout the affected area.
“As the scope of the incident unfolded and expanded, we realized the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) would have to be activated. We activated the EOC about 7:30 a.m. on Friday and remained operational until 4 p.m. Monday, when it was reported that all areas were returned to normal service.”
Ericson is the deputy director of the Hamilton County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. The retired Air Force tactical controller carries himself with an easy calm similar to that of a hurricane’s eye. A few minutes in a room with Ericson and it’s evident that he is a person you want smack dab in the center of any storm, fecal or otherwise.
I watched firsthand as the mobilization of water distribution points kicked into overdrive throughout the day following the event. The police and fire training cadets on Amnicola unloaded tractor trailers by hand and off-duty police officers and firefighters came in to assist with bottled water transportation to numerous neighborhood distribution points around the city.
Many of them stayed on throughout the weekend to ensure bottles of water made it to those who needed it. Army ants couldn’t have organized as fast—it was impressive.
“This was a multi-jurisdictional effort encompassing local, regional, and state assets. Fire apparatus was brought in from twenty-five agencies that extended out as far as Knoxville and the Cumberland Plateau. Toilet facilities were brought in from areas as far away as Memphis. Water was provided by TEMA (Tennessee Emergency Management Agency), Coca-Cola, and Tennessee American Water,” Ericson explains.
“Five hundred thousand bottles of water were distributed to the affected areas and five tanker strike teams consisting of thirty-four tankers were established to ensure fire suppression throughout all of the affected areas. Hundreds of toilet facilities were located as needed throughout the affected areas.”
Just about a week prior to the water outage I was honored to have a conference with Hamilton County’s Emergency Management team. Let me give it to you straight: as I interviewed the team, I realized that I was in the presence of the real-life Avengers.
These men and women have over fifty years collective experience with disaster response and preparedness. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to those kids who took being prepared a little too seriously…well, they may be sitting up at all hours ensuring our butts are thoroughly covered for just about every major event that could come our way.
Ericson beams with pride as he gestures to the team of experts around him, something that strikes me as a mixture of fraternal bond and genuine admiration. The five-person team all have diverse backgrounds in disaster planning, firefighting, hazmat, and public health; each member bringing a wealth of skills and knowledge to support Hamilton County and beyond.
This disaster dream team is staffed by Greg Helms, lead EMA planner, Greg Smith, EMA planner, Amber Randolph, fixed nuclear facility planner, and Fire Lieutenants Jody Clift and Nick Wilson. Together they are regularly adapting new technologies, training, and resources to keep our communities proactive instead of reactive to any disaster situation.
Greg Helms serves Hamilton County as lead emergency management planner. The quiet, no-nonsense man chuckles as I asked him why he made a career out of planning for the worse-case scenarios. To which he replied, “I was a Boy Scout and I loved always being prepared.”
But really Greg Helms is a silent chaos theorist who is one part Boy Scout and two parts psychic Jedi master. Helms ensures that disaster mitigation plans are relevant, informative, and cohesive for all players in the response process. He also ensures that the county is compliant in order to receive Federal grant funds that keep response functions equipped and running.
“The planning process is really the most valuable part of a plan; if something happens, we can’t just pull out a five-hundred-page handbook for a step-by-step solution while a disaster is ongoing,” Helms notes. “The process of working a plan and training and exercises that integrate all the agencies within Hamilton County is crucial.”
To clarify this: Chattanooga resides in a very rich environment for disasters both man-made and natural. There exist two nuclear power facilities, several manufacturing sites, a hydroelectric dam, and active transportation operations on land, air, and river.
Under the unified Hamilton County Emergency Services umbrella each largescale function, be it commercial or communal, is informed and trained alongside the county to really drive home the concept of cohesion.
Let’s say a barge capsizes near the North Shore. Not only will the uniformed first responders be there, but so will Hamilton County Emergency Services and any commercial entity that holds responsibility in that area. HCES will collect data, formulate planning, and ensure execution of plans with the assets and resources available, all while keeping John Q. Public and support departments informed.
Usually the average person will only see the frontline responders when it comes to anything emergency related.
Yet there is a complex network of communication at the local, state, and federal levels, including interdepartmental training and fast real-time communication with redundant systems to ensure the backup will have a backup.
Emergency communication facilities have multiple locations just in case of power outages or damaged primary facilities.
There always seems to be a plan for a plan, with back-up plans for how our neighboring counties and states can help or can be helped. This teamwork mentality extends to many distant cities as well, so it’s not uncommon for members of Hamilton County’s Emergency Services to go elsewhere to help a sister city in times of need.
But the fun doesn’t end there. After every event, data is collected, analyzed, and sourced to specialized groups in the area. Currently Helms is working with UTC’s Department of Geology to put together information regarding landslides.
So, rest assured that long after the news crews move on to the next potential disaster, our emergency service heroes are still working previous events into training and operational doctrines.
But here’s the million-dollar questions: How prepared is Hamilton County? Should we lose sleep?
“I have a lot of confidence with the agencies in this area; the key resource is its people [and] everyone that I’ve dealt with here, from leadership to the boots on the ground, and for me personally, the person who overwatches all of it, I’ve got no worries,” Ericson says. “It’s all about the public staying safe, everybody here, and the entire area is willing to assist each other. We’ve built connections, we’ve trained together, and we’ve evolved together as a community to face anything.”
Lt. Jody Clift, Hamilton County fire training instructor, leans towards the conference table to drive this point home with his explosive personality that could make aged nitroglycerin jealous.
“I think the bottom line is that everybody in this room and all the people we work with are doing this because we give a damn.”
Truer words couldn’t be articulated any better.
As I leave Hamilton County’s Avengers at the 911 Center I walk away with a feeling of genuine ease. Allstate Insurance should take a page from HCES playbook because when it comes down to facing emergency situations of any proportion, I believe we are all in very good hands.