APRIL - MAY - JUNE 2014
ELMA / WEST SENECA SERVING THE COMMUNITY SINCE 2006
ELMA Edward R. Sauer Emergency Manager (716) 652-7635 oem@elmanewyork.com MEETINGS - 7:00 PM 2nd Wednesday of the Month • April 9th • May 7th • June 11
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SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: MORE THAN JUST PAYING ATTENTION
PAST
PRESENT
Where Was I? What Happened?
Where am I? What is happening?
Who was there?
Why?
FUTURE Where am I going? What could happen? What are the options?
th*
Training and meetings are held at the Elma Senior Center unless noted. Elma Senior Center 3007 Bowen Rd. Elma, NY 14059
* Town Hall 1600 Bowen Rd. Elma, NY 14059
Check here for updates Web: www.elmanewyork.com/oem/ECert.htm Facebook: Elma Community Emergency Response Team, Inc.
WEST SENECA John Gullo Emergency Manager (716) 558-3238 jgullo@twsny.org MEETINGS - 7:00 PM 3rd Monday of the month • April 21st - Search & Rescue Refresher • May 19th • June 16th First Aid Refresher Please watch the website and Facebook for training and meeting locations.
Check here for updates Web: www.wscert.net Facebook: West Seneca Cert
WHO - WHAT - WHY - WHERE - WHEN - HOW When I was a new firefighter I vividly remember my training instructor telling me to pay attention on the fireground. It is crucial and would improve my safety and chances of survival in a hostile environment. He never taught me about situational awareness. It’s that situational awareness didn’t exist as a term used in emergency services at the time. The earlier lessons on situational awareness included instructions like “pay attention” and “don’t get tunnel vision”.
situational awareness is the awareness of immediate surroundings. I asked him to continue. He said that’s it.
Have they taught you about situational awareness yet? The answer was in the affirmative. I was relieved. What did they teach you about situational awareness? Knowing how the topic has been a subject of much research in the past twenty years, I waited enthusiastically for the response that would contain some indication that science has made its way into recruit training.
sponders struggle to even articulate what it means.
That’s it? I had a flashback to my fifth grade English class where we were practicing word definitions. If we EVER used the same word we were defining as part of its definition, it was an automatic failure. Yet, here it was. I sighed in anguish. I asked so what does that mean? The response I was so hoping for was not to get was exactly what Thankfully, we are coming a long way since I got. It means we need to pay more attenour early years in the fire service. Or have tion. we? I recently gave a presentation to a Indeed you do, young recruit. Flawed situagroup of firefighter recruits. The topic was tional awareness is the leading contributing firefighter safety. As part of that talk I had to factor to firefighter near miss and casualty ask them about situational awareness. events at emergency scenes. Yet young re-
Situation awareness (SA) involves being aware of what is happening in your vicinity, in order to understand how information, events, and one’s own actions will impact goals and objectives, both immediately and in the near future. Simplified Situational Awareness or SA is knowing the who, what, Unfortunately the response was “They where, why and the how of your environtaught us to pay attention”. All of the fire- ment. Who is in your immediate vicinity? fighters had a basic firefighter training man- What are they doing? ual prominently displayed in front of them. I As previously noted, Situational Awareness asked one of them to open book and read training is taught to emergency personnel the definition of situational awareness. I had such as fire fighters, police, and the military. not pre scripted this exercise so I had no idea what to expect. Here’s what he said:
APRIL - MAY - JUNE 2014
IS NBC’S ‘REVOLUTION’S’ ELECTRICITY BLACKOUT POSSIBLE?
We all practice SA without even being aware. We have done it since birth. We read and interpret gestures or expressions and react to those stimuli. People can usually sense when something is not right, a feeling known as “gut instinct”. Unfortunately many dismiss it attributing it to some internal issue like stress or lack of sleep. The impulse to silence our gut instinct can be dangerous. An important lesson is to always listen to your instinct. Lacking or inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error. Thus, situation awareness is especially important where the information flow can be quite high and poor decisions may lead to serious consequences (e.g., car accident, walking blindly into unsafe situations, functioning as a soldier, or treating critically ill or injured patients).
The darkened skyline of a major metropolis may be an eerily peaceful sight, but it is never a comforting one. Consider when lower Manhattan went dark after Super storm Sandy slammed into the seaboard in 2012. While many dealt with minor inconveniences like missing “Homeland” or their Twitter feed, larger problems emerged as hospitals ran out of backup generators and the city’s infrastructure became compromised. That’s the premise of the NBC show “Revolution” that portrays a post apocalyptic America during an inexplicable worldwide blackout. The show, scarily enough, is not that far removed from reality. The 2003 blackout that spread from Canada into the U.S. and last year’s Silicon Valley outage, purportedly orchestrated by still-on-the-run domestic terrorists, indeed may make us wonder if someday we’ll all be yelling that “It’s never going to come back on!” just like the main character on the show. Considering we’re an increasingly wired society, is a total blackout even possible? The thought of losing every watt of our electricity is certainly an alarming one, considering how dependent on energy we have become in nearly all facets of life -from traditional uses such as streetlights to the more modern conveniences like cell phones, tablets and laptops.
Increasing your situational awareness isn’t complicated. It can be done in a couple of ways. The first and easiest way is to simply take an extra few minutes and do an awareness check. Look around and answer the who, what, where, why and how questions.
In fact, 84 percent of Americans said they could not go more than a day without their mobile device, according to a 2012 poll by Time Magazine. What would we do with all the missed status updates? All these devices need to get their juice somewhere, and they are adding on to our country’s The second is to observe people around ever-increasing thirst for power. you and analyze their behavior. When Electricity is often measured in kilowattwalking out of a store or the mall look hours, or kwh. It means what you might around you. Is there someone following imagine. If you were to take a standard or near my car? What are they doing? 60-watt light bulb and let it run for 1,000 Do I feel safe? Walking to your car with hours, it would consume 60 kilowatt-hours your nose stuck in your cell phone could of energy. According to the U.S. Energy be dangerous. Information Administration, or EIA, AmeriFirefighters, police and others must be cans’ total electricity consumption in 2011 aware because of the jobs. This train- was a enormous 3.86 trillion kilowatting helps them make the right choices in hours, a 13-fold increase from the preemergency situations. iPad days of 1950 when just 8 million U.S. There are many articles and topics about homes had TVs. Situational Awareness on the Internet. To be fair, only about 1.43 trillion of those Self Defense and Martial Arts classes also hours in 2011 came from residential conSA it as part of their training. sumption with powered air conditioning,
refrigerators and the cumulative 250 billion hours of TV we now watch annually. For most Americans, the thought of a massive blackout makes for prime-time TV and not much else. Then a freak storm hits, leaving millions of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut residents without power for weeks. “The most likely disaster is always the one we’re not expecting,” Konrad says. “I can’t say what will happen, but I know we’ll be surprised.” At least not to the point of complete national failure, thanks to our national electrical grid being divided into three independent sections -- eastern, western and Texas -- that can disconnect from one another at the first sign of significant trouble. “In the U.S., we have built-in protections,” says Saifur Rahman, professor at Virginia Tech’s Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “It’s almost theoretically impossible to have all three grids go down, unless one goes down for technical reasons and another that when tragedies such as Super storm Sandy present a bit of a Catch-22 with our current system. Power lines above ground are susceptible to wind and falling branches, while underground lines can flood
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FLOODING
IS YOUR FAMILY OR BUSINESS READY ? John Gullo, Disaster Coordinator
be needed and something very important Some people take family survival kits for could possibly be left out. granted. They assume that either they When a disaster or emergency hits your will never really be in a disaster or that area, make sure that your family is well the stock they already have in the house prepared to survive by having the right is sufficient enough for the survival of the kind of family survival kits. There is no family even without a proper disaster pre- reason to go without the survival gear that paredness kit. There are many reasons your family needs. It would be a shame to why professionally packed family survival survive a disaster only to suffer and parkits are important. Read on to learn more ish from dehydration, starvation, a lack of about how critical disaster preparedness dry clothes, warm shelter, or basic first aid kits are. supplies. Emergency preparedness is an activity that every family and businesses should engage in. A disaster can happen in any area and they always strike suddenly. Often the survival gear a person has makes all the difference between life and death for them and those around them. A disaster can leave your family without food, water, clothing, or shelter. Emergency rescue teams have a hard time getting to every single victim when a disaster is wide spread. That means a family could be left for many days without life’s necessities. For some people living many days without food and water is simply not an option. Some people have recognized the importance to have emergency essentials such as freeze-dried foods in stock, but they cannot predict every item that might
Small businesses play an important role in the nation’s economic growth. These small companies are also vulnerable to major financial losses due to disasters to the point of being forced to shut down for good as a result of a severe weather event. Thus it will impact the supplies they may produce and the employees that work there, such as being out of work due to the disaster. The increase in the extreme weather events means that it is critical for small businesses to engage in disaster preparedness planning. Disaster planning does not stop there, consider making sure all your important documents are in a safe place and up to date. Both families and businesses that have computers should have them backed up with all that important data.
Flood effects can be local, impacting a neighborhood or community, or very large, affecting entire river basins and multiple states. While some floods develop slowly, over a period of days, some may develop quickly, and cause flash floods. Floods are the most frequent and costly natural disasters in terms of human hardship and economic loss. If flooding occurs, be aware that even shallow-depth, fast-moving waters of 24 inches can produce enough force to carry away a vehicle, and six inches of moving water can knock a person off their feet. There are two types of flood warnings: • A flood warning is issued when flooding is expected to occur more than 6 hours after heavy precipitation, snowmelt, ice jams, or dam failures, or when a river is expected to exceed flood stage in the next 48 hours. • A flash-flood warning is issued when the potential exists for heavy precipitation to create flash flooding in the next 6 – 24 hours. Here are some Flood Preparedness Tips • Check portable radio for current information and emergency messages • Stay out of flooded areas • Prepare a flood evacuation plan and obtain flood insurance if you live or work in a flood plain. • Keep important documents in a water-proof box • Do not walk, swim, or drive through flood waters • Stay off bridges over fast-moving water
Wall being constructed at Lexington Green to help control flooding in the West Seneca area. Wall construction by Edbauer Construction & Union Concrete.
• Avoid waterways, storm drains and irrigation ditches
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UPCOMING TRAINING & EVENTS CALENDAR
SKYWARN SKYWARNTM is a nationwide program of spotters that report severe weather to the National Weather Service. People can become a SKYWARNTM spotter for the NWS, all you have to do is attend one of our Spotter Training Sessions. There is no charge for the training. SKYWARNTM training sessions are held throughout our area of responsibility based on demand. The basic training session provides a brief overview to the National Weather Service (the organization and our responsibilities), the equipment we use (including capabilities and limitations), and basic severe weather meteorology
April
RED CROSS TRAINING
Sky Warn 2014 - Cheektowaga Erie Co.Fire Training Center
9
SMART - Etiquette for Assisting the Visually Impared
Cheektowaga CERT hosted a Red Cross 12 SMART - Etiquette for Assisting the Visually Impared Shelter Training on March 22nd at the Erie County Fire Training Center. The course 21 WS CERT Search & Rescue Training ran from 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM. and Tips Refresher 29 Sky Warn 2014- Buffalo State College May 14 Elma CERT
Attendees are instructed what types of severe weather the National Weather Service is interested in hearing about.
14 SMART - Psychological First Aid Review 17 SMART - Psychological First Aid Review
For more information, please contact: Jon Hitchcock -- Jon.Hitchcock@noaa. gov -- SKYWARN Focal Point, WFO Buffalo or Judith Levan -- Judith.Levan@ noaa.gov -- WFO Buffalo, Warning Coordination Meteorologist
7
ELMA HOSTS SEMINAR
17 Empowering Volunteers - Niagara University
Approximately 15 people attended a “How to Start your Garden from Seed” Seminar 19 WS CERT Search & Rescue Drill hosted by the Elma CERT group. They 21 Sky Warn 2014 - Tonawanda covered basic topics such as type of June seeds, seed selection and supplies. 11 Elma CERT - Town Hall 18 SMART - Safety Reiview 21 SMART - Safety Review
Check the West Seneca CERT and Elma CERT, Inc. websites for updates and upcoming events.
LEXINGTON GREEN The West Seneca CERT helped at Lexington Green by hosting a warming and food center. McDonald’s donated over 200 adult meals to workers volunteering at the Community Caring Day in January.
Anone interested in training provided by SMART must pre-register at: www2.erie. WELLNESS FAIR gov/smart. Some trainings may have preWest Seneca CERT educated the pub- requisites. lic by having a table at the West Seneca For more information on HAM Radio classSchools Wellness Fair es visit South Towns Amateur Radio Society online at: http://stars.thefruths.com To attend Sky Warn Training visit: www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/skywarnt.htm
ELMA CODE RED NOTIFICATION
WEST SENECA NIXLE NOTIFICATION
In Elma sign-up for Code Red to be notified by your local emergency response team in the event of emergency situations or critical community alerts. Signup for Code Red by visiting the town website at: www.elmanewyork.com
Sign up for emergency and non-emergency alerts for up-to-date information during an incident or anytime from the office of Disaster Preparedness. Nixle will provide the same EAS message to every one who signs up. To register visit www.nixle.com
3RD ANNUAL ZOMBIE There will be a 3rd Annual Zombie Preparedness and Safety Fair this year. Watch for updates on www. PrepareHub.org or on the Elma Community Emergency Response Team facebook page.