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TMCNet: This is a test ...: Mon County tweaking its disaster plan

[November 17, 2007]

This is a test ...: Mon County tweaking its disaster plan

(The Dominion Post in Morgantown (WV)(KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Nov. 17--The Monongalia County Office of Emergency Management plans to update its emergency alert system by seeking input from Cheat Lake residents, officials said Friday.

OEM Public Information Officer Mike Wolfe said the agency wants to find the best way to provide fast, accurate information in the event of another emergency like last week's chemical spill on Interstate 68.

A tractor-trailer overturned Nov. 9, killing the driver, spilling a toxic chemical near the roadway and shutting down the interstate for about 11 hours. After firefighters determined the chemical -- toluene diisocyanate -- was reactive to water, a shelter-in-place advisory was issued to prevent Cheat Lake residents from inhaling any potentially harmful vapors.

Though weather radios and local media broadcast news of the advisory, an emergency siren designed to alert residents malfunctioned. Many residents learned of the alert from concerned friends and neighbors.

"We realize some of the issues of the public notification system, so we're looking at other avenues of public notification," Wolfe said Friday.

Public meetings will likely be scheduled sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas so Cheat Lake residents can provide suggestions for notifying people of emergencies.

"We want to know what works best for them, what's the best avenue," Wolfe said.

Emergency alert plans developed at the Cheat Lake meetings will likely be used countywide, Wolfe said, but meetings also will be held in other areas of the county to gather ideas.

"We want to bring everybody together so that everybody's on the same page," Wolfe said.

At the Cheat Lake meetings, OEM officials plan to recommend an audible monthly test of the emergency alert siren so residents will know the siren is working and what it sounds like. Before last week's accident, OEM had conducted silent monthly tests to avoid alarming residents and other people passing through the area.

"We didn't want it just going off, and people getting used to the sound," Wolfe said.

If residents approve of the OEM suggestion for audible tests, Wolfe said signs will be posted along I-68 and throughout the Cheat Lake area to warn people of an upcoming test.

"Then not only do we know [the siren] is working, but the residents there also know that's what it is," Wolfe said.

OEM is considering starting a system called CityWatch, an online notification system designed to alert people of an emergency via a variety of methods. CityWatch would send out a mass notice to anyone signed up for the service within a 12-county region determined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

"It's a Web-based system," said Ryan Thorne, deputy director of the OEM. "The folks sign up. They can do e-mail, phone, cell phone, text messaging, faxing. It'll do multiple notifications."

Anyone without access to the Internet could contact OEM to sign up, Wolfe said.

Thorne said residents could subscribe for free. OEM is still waiting on a cost estimate for the system, but Thorne said he plans to submit a Homeland Security grant application to pay for it.

Because of grant funding deadlines, Thorne said it would be at least a year before OEM could begin CityWatch service.

Though CityWatch would be a more effective alert tool, Thorne said OEM is also considering a reverse 911 system for Monongalia County. In a reverse 911 system, a voice message can be sent simultaneously via telephone to all the residents in a specific area.

"The problem with reverse 911, though, is it's based on land-line phones, whereas the CityWatch system allows cell phones," Thorne said. "We have a population that's leaving their land-line phone and just having a cell phone."

Kelly Cornwell, of Lakeview Manor, said he watched television from 7 a.m. on the morning of the accident, but saw nothing about the shelter-in-place advisory. He was pleased to hear OEM is considering new ways to notify residents of emergencies.

"I think they're all good ideas," Cornwell said. "The more we're informed, the better. We're pretty lucky that nothing else has happened."

To see more of The Dominion Post or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dominionpost.com/.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

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