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The Hurricane Hotline

HAVOC-1 is becoming the home of the Hurricane Hotline.

Yesterday, the crew manning the ‘Hurricane Hotline’ aboard HAVOC-1 took approximately 1,300 calls. Amongst 4-6 different dispatchers, that’s a brisk pace. In addition, the staff working in the Buncombe County PSCC are also taking calls at an extremely brisk pace. At the conference call tonight, Committee Chair Nick DiCicco said the call volume was down juuuuuust a bit today, but still quite high. Many areas of Buncombe County are still cut off by impassible roads. Response personnel from every acronym in  the disaster response alphabet are operating in the Blue Ridge Mountain region, including TERT teams from Ohio and several other states.

The crew from Ohio MARCS is continuing radio infrastructural work with radio programming and assisting their North Carolina VIPER counterparts. Today, they also repositioned the mobile Tower on Wheels approximately 200 feet further up a mountain, which has been incorporated for use as a repeater site on the VIPER network.

Personnel from Florida TERT are preparing to return home due the approaching Tropical Storm Milton, forecasted to cross South Florida as a potentially major hurricane next week. Meanwhile, the team now has reliable, secure access to showers and a laundry facility, welcomed luxuries on the operation.

Word has gone out to organizations across the State of Ohio of the need for additional public safety telecommunicators to assist with assembling TERT-OH-2. Interested personnel are encouraged to fill out an application on the Ohio TERT website. This second team is expected to depart Ohio on or about October 15th and return around Halloween.

The team are tired, but are doing great work.

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Reinforcements From Ohio

Operations are continuing at the Buncombe County PSCC. The Public Safety Communications Center, the back-up PSAP, and HAVOC-1 as a 311 center are all very busy. The teams are continuing 12ON-12OFF shift rotations. Additional personnel from Florida TERT are arriving, and work is continuing to coordinate a second team from Ohio to head down around the middle of the month.

Today, the team received a sizable delivery of goods from the Butler County Sheriff’s Office, including 2 pallets of water, food, clothes and other essentials for Ohio TERT and the other TERT teams working at Buncombe County PSCC. Supplies are still rare commodities, so we are appreciative to Sheriff Jones, Captain Matt Franke, and others at the BCSO who coordinated this delivery.

Coordination work continues to get an TERT-OH-2 team assembled. Personnel interested in deploying should immediately fill out an application through the team website. To review, 2 years service, basic ICS classes, and EMD certification are all required for assignment. THIS IS A HARDSHIP ASSIGNMENT. Every governmental agency and NGO operating in Western North Carolina is operating under hardship conditions.

 

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Have Arrived Safely in Asheville

The team departed Cambridge this morning at 6:30 and headed down Interstate 77 with an escort from the Ohio State Highway Patrol to the West Virginia state line. In total, the fleet consists of HAVOC (field communications unit), 3 SUV’s, 2 pickup trucks, a fuel trailer, a radio Tower On Wheels, a generator, and a supply trailer. While on route, the team received word from Buncombe County Public Safety Communications of the need for diapers and baby formula (we cannot imagine why babies don’t like MRE’s). So, the team stopped a couple time and purchased all the diapers and formula they could find.

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Ohio TERT arrived in Asheville around 7:00 and arrived at their assigned shelter facility at a school about an hour later. Personnel from Florida TERT are also there. At last report, the team was safe and establishing base camp.

 

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Terra Firma Ohio

The team returned on Tuesday afternoon to Gahanna, and following a debriefing, headed home to their respective parts of the Buckeye State. On behalf of the entire TERT OH-1 team, and the Ohio TERT Committee, we express our THANKS to the agencies and organizations that made the deployment possible. All deployed personnel should have received information on the upcoming reimbursement webinar meeting. The in-person team AAR meeting is being planned now.

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Last Stop, Next Stop…

Representing for the Buckeye State

The team stopped last night in Ocala, Florida, for the night. Tonight, they are stopped in Knoxville, Tennessee, for a last dinner as TERT OH-1, and to assist local authorities in fishing a goalpost out of a river.

Tomorrow, the team will arrive back in Ohio, and head back to their respective friends, families, and centers. There will be meetings, debriefings, and after action reports, for sure. From the newest member of the Task Force all the way up to the Committee Chairs, this has been at once a learning experience for all of us, and a sight to behold. Likely, many articles will be written, and seminars held, to talk through how this EMAC activation went from a paper request from Florida to assembling a full Task Force in 4 days. But, for the entire Ohio TERT team, as we witnessed it, this was a great moment for our team, for our State, and for all the organizations that supported our work to carry out our chartered mandate.

God Bless Florida.

We done good.

Its True. It’s Damn True.

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Job Done; Packing for Home…

The team ended their last shift at midnight. Job done, the team is packing up this morning, and expects to leave for Georgia this afternoon. The team is tired, but looking forward to a hot shower, and being able to sleep in a bed, inside a structure. The quote that has been given many times during the deployment is, “…experience of a lifetime…” This team of telecommunicators, themselves the best of their home agencies, were tested in many ways. They worked without days off, in a center foreign to them, on a phone and CAD system foreign to them, and they not only filled the need, they THRIVED. This grit and determination is part of what makes the TERT program such a critical tool for public safety communications centers in the aftermath of disasters like Ian.

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Early Demobilization

The team was today advised by Florida TERT Committee Chairman Natalia Duran that the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Communications Division has advised that their center and personnel have recovered to a point where TERT OH-1 is no longer needed and will therefore be demobilized 3 days early. The team’s shifts will end at midnight on Saturday, October 15. The team will spend Sunday reloading the equipment trailers and drive for the night to Georgia. They will drive to Central Tennessee on Monday, and plan to arrive back in Gahanna on Tuesday. Once a firm time is known, it will be posted here and on the team’s Facebook page. Family, friends, and media are warmly invited to welcome home the team.

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Thanks from Florida APCO and Florida TERT

Utilities crews in staging near LCSO HQ.

TERT OH-1 personnel continued working today, and with the major step of public utility crews making entry to the barrier islands of Lee County, call volume continues to escalate. The access of personnel to facilitate restoration of electricity to the hardest hit areas is a key hurdle on the road to recovery.

Elsewhere, our team had the chance to receive a visit from Florida APCO Chapter President Kathy Liriano and Florida TERT Committee Chair Natalia Duran. President Liriano and

Meeting FL-TERT Coordinator Natalia Duran and Florida APCO Chapter President Kathy Liriano.

Chiaman Duran were visiting with TERT personnel from elsewhere in Florida, and from Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, and Texas, who answered the EMAC request for assistance.

The team remains in good health and spirit but is tired.

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Operations Continuing…

We’ve had the first casualty of the deployment. One of the smaller tents did not survive yesterday’s storm. It was being used as a rest & recuperation area, not a sleeping quarter, so there is little change for the team. But, this is still a reminder that Mother Nature is still very much in charge. The team remains tired, but in good spirits.

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Blame It On The Rain….

Flooding at the campsite.

Not even TERT OH-1 is immune to Mother Nature. A locally heavy thunderstorm created a bit of pond in the campsite. No injuries, all equipment is okay, but a lesson to always be prepared for everything!

Run volume is picking up. Lee County and the municipal governmental jurisdictions within it are starting to let evacuees back in with more regularity, though the 7PM curfew remains in areas without water or electricity.

Everyone remains in good spirits, if a bit tired, and now, soggy, too.

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