Small town evacuation plan

[Weruj1]

We are a small town POC department. Recently we had a large natural gas leak that affected 2 neighborhoods. We evacuated residents but had no place to "process" them to get them timely information except through the local TV stations. Dispatch got plenty of calls and had no idea what to tell them. We did get them to a shelter late in game. Does anyone else have any plans they would be willing to share, we as a city are working on a plan in the event something like this occurs again. Thanks in advance for the replies.

[FlyingKiwi]

DUCK.

Here comes another 5 pages of nothing.

[Weruj1]

Nope ..................Ian it was as it says a test..........I have a legit post. Early as 3 this afternoon I still could not post here for a new thread. The WT is makin progress.

[FTMPTB15]

Around here, we use the Reverse 911 system to alert people about an evacuation (or anything else for that matter). Depending on the area, there are designated shelters for different areas (mainly, schools). Once the shelter is activated and people start arriving, any updates are given to the person "in-charge" of the shelter and they keep the evacuees up-to-date. That, coupled with regular press conferences, seems to keep them content and updated.

One more thing... we also "shelter-in-place" when it is acceptable to do so!


Weruj... I sent ya a PM.

[FlyingKiwi]

Weruj.

No worries mate.

Can't help as our system is different here. Being a small town ourselves it would consist of the truck driving around saying over the P.A.

"RUN... RUN FAST.... RUN FOR THE HILLS."

Or words to that effect.

Seriously though we do have a Civil Defence organisation, but the location for it is in the area to most likely to need evacuation. Politicians at their very best.

[mcaldwell]

Hey Josh,

I serve as a deputy emergency coordinator for our region, and I have an electronic copy of our region's old disaster plan if you are interested (new one coming out asap). It doesn't contain receptions center procedures in detail, because that is the responsibility of our ESS (emergency social services) division, but I can find out what they have and see if I can get you a copy if you still need it.

In the event of a gas leak or other time sensitive emergency, the gist of it is this:

1. The FD or RCMP (Police) conduct the emergency evacuation and stage them in a temporary holding area (i.e. the nearest shopping mall parking lot, etc.).

2. As they are conducting the evacuation the EOC is activated via a 1 800 number to the provincial emergency program operations center (PEP), and tasked with establishing the reception center.

3. The local Emergency Cooordinator or thier deputy(s) is contacted to activate the EOC locally. Communications with the FD or RCMP is established as priority.

4. The EOC is staffed and the ESS division of the EOC is responsible for establishing and operating the receptions center. They have a pre-plan for this with the most likely centers already identified, and kits ready to go to effect the activation.

5. The location for the reception center is decided and passed back to the FD or RCMP, who are responsible for disseminating the message in the immediate area of the emergency. The displaced residents are forwarded on.

6. Additional residents are informed via media, or door to door where safe using community groups (i.e. cadets, community policing goups, etc.)

7. Once at the reception center, they are processed and accomodations and other short term needs are arranged if required.

If the emergency is not quite as time sensitive (i.e. hours are acceptable instead of minutes), the EOC and ESS reception center are established before the message goes out. The same method for dissemination is used, although we are investigating a procedure involving a private service that will maintain and activates a call list to the entire community on demand. The fee for such services is based primarily on calls made, so it is cheap when not used regularly.

I'll see how much detailed info I can get you.

[ROOKIELZ]

Our town is currently updating their plan.

We use RCMP and the EMS workers to go door to door, informing folks. If the FF's are not busy, they go door to door also.

People are generally directed to the largest local church or the elementary school. In a worst case scenario, we would bus them out to the Youth farm on the outskirts of town or the next town.

Since I live and serve in a small town, I am not sure if this basic plan would work for you.

And then there are those residents that refuse to leave...

[MalahatTwo7]

Josh, I haven't quite worked out how things go here, but I can speak at least somewhat for what the Cowichan Valley Regional District/Malahat area have set up.

Essentially from past experience (summer 2000 - 30,000 litre propane tanker rollover incident) folks (on the north side of event) were directed to Mill Bay - next nearest "town" and to the Community Center there, where those who required shelter were kept and it served as an information centre as well. Which incidentally is part of the overall regional evac plan.

Those at the south end were directed to another community centre, however many of those folks also have family etc in the Greater Victoria area. Those who did not went to the Comm Centre in Langford (I think) where they were provided with current information etc there. After that, mostly it was the media that kept things going, radio etc.

I will do some digging around later, I might be able to find the CVRD Evac plan in their website somewhere.

[Bones42]

Our "horn" system is actually a speaker that plays a recording of the horn going off. Being a speaker allows us to broadcast voice messages that are heard throughout town. Basically, the system now is to announce there is a situation and to tune their radios to 1630am for further information. We can then program whatever messages we want on the 1630 continuous play loop. We have also driven around using the PA's and gone door to door in the past.

[doughesson]

I'm not saying I've seen every evacuation plan there is but when I drove a wheelchair bus in Kentucky,I saw an evacuation plan for a mentally handicapped residence where it had a section on what to do during a dam break.
This place was in Land between the Lakes where even if both Kentucky Dam AND Barkley Dam broke,where they were would be about as affected as if they were standing in the bath tub and pulled the drain plug.

[KevinFFVFD]

well it is defiantly an issue where i am. we have had our share of gas leaks. but here, we live about 30 miles from a nuclear power plant, and a major section a railroad runs right through the county. the railroad hauls some nasty stuff too. the railroad runs alongside I-20, which alone would cause a huge problem since it is a major mean of travel with a lot of people on it. we have an evacuation plan in place incase of anything going wrong at the nuclear plant. we have those big siren things throughout town, but they are always going off and people just assume that means bad weather is coming and wont really react to it in the event of a evacuation. basically it means cops and firefighters going through neighborhoods and telling people to leave. the last evacuation we had to do was about 3 monthes ago when a natural gas line started leaking. thank goodness we only had to evacuate a small neighborhood.

[Catch22]

A good place to start would be your county and state emergency operations plans. Your needs to work with it, anyway. www.llis.gov has several resources as well.