Stakeholders attend disaster recovery training in Washington County

WASHINGTON — A smattering of public and private employees in Southeast Iowa attended a FEMA-led training in disaster recovery efforts last week, which lasted the entire business day.

The class was broken down into several lectures by NorthWest Arkansas Community College Adjunct Instructor Glen Rudner, before breaking out into groups to work through hypothetical disaster recovery scenarios.

While the exercises weren’t specific to Washington County, or even necessarily specific disaster scenarios, Rudner said the class helped disaster response professionals learn flexibility in their emergency recovery tactics.

“We take an all-hazards approach to planning,” he said. “It could be a snowstorm, it could be a flood. There are certain pieces of those types of incidents that all have a common theme that run through them. Such as how to set up a command, how to set up the emergency operations center … you’re trying to make sure that they have an understanding of all hazards and how to set up the recovery process.”

The content focused not on disaster response, but on recovery, which Rudner said included all activities after a state of emergency returned to a state of relative normal.

While the recovery phase of a disaster may seem less pressing than immediate response steps, the instructor said it was still essential that stakeholders strive for efficiency and timeliness as they turn their attention toward cleanup, repair and mitigation efforts.

  Buy Photo

“You can put into order all of the resources, personnel, equipment that you may need in an event,” he said. “You want to make sure that you can get your assets in place … you give them the ability to plan ahead for these incidents, instead of organizing the day of.”

While government officials represented many of the participants, attendance was free, and some were non-government community members who might play a role in disaster recovery efforts, like a spokesperson from the ISU Ag Extension Office, and from local business advocacy groups.

At one point in the class, participants discussed the role of farmers and construction contractors in a snowstorm last winter, who helped county crews clear some roads of snow and ice using skid-loaders and personal plows.

“The recovery process does not include just your government officials, just your emergency management coordinator. It is everyone … all of these people have connections throughout the community, and they all know things that will be important if we have to rebuild,” Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator Marissa Reisen said. “The more people who have the information about how we can make the most of the recovery process, the better the whole community is.”

The class is one of many held around Iowa this year.

Reisen said the state was pushing new, flushed-out emergency recovery playbooks, spurring efforts to do the same in all 99 counties. Attendees at last week’s class came not only from Washington County, but from around the state, and even one from Missouri.

“We get to talk about stuff with people not from our community, who might have tried something that we think might be a great idea,” Reisen said. “They can say, ‘Oh, we’ve tried that, it worked or it didn’t work and this is why,’ … that’s where a lot of the value of the class is, the exercise and activity components where you talk to people that are in the room with you.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com