Tabletop presentation helps Charles City leaders prepare for potential disaster

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Imagine Charles City is cut off from the outside world.

An ice storm has torn through the region and knocked out power on the south side of Charles City. All roads that lead into town are impassable and I-35 is shut down in both directions.

To make matters worse, influenza has swept across the nation, causing more than 3,000 deaths, and Floyd County isn’t immune to the epidemic.

Are city leaders ready to help save lives and get Charles City back on its feet?

Seem over the top?

It’s meant to be.

That scenario was part of a tabletop exercise that Lezlie Weber played out for about 25 Charles City department heads and city officials last week in the City Hall council chambers.

Weber, the Floyd County emergency management director, is touring the county with her tabletop exercises and introducing the collaborative method to towns like Rockford, Rudd and Marble Rock.

“They are very critical from my standpoint because without these, all of the departments don’t realize necessarily maybe what the other departments may be doing in a disaster situation,” said Weber. “You’ve got your own things to focus on. You’ve got to worry about what your department is responsible for and the tabletops bring the discussion together.”

The mock disaster scenarios were born out of the confusion of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In that real-life threat to safety, New York City fire and police departments were dealing with unprecedented levels of trying to administer help on a grand scale in order to save thousands of lives in the World Trade Center Twin Towers before they collapsed.

“9/11 is actually what set this in place,” Said Weber. “It gradually started growing. That is pretty much where the awareness and the importance of something like this came from.”

The United States Department of Homeland Security was created in November 2002, and that spawned tabletop exercises to help local authorities communicate and coordinate their efforts better. The goal is to improve disaster response and recovery – saving lives.

Weber called the controlled atmosphere of last Wednesday’s tabletop part of the crawl phase in a crawl, walk, run progression. The tabletop exercises help community leaders gear up for bigger functional exercises that will lead to a full-scale mock disaster later on.

The next step up, the walk phase, is a functional exercise where city officials can test a part of the scenario. The run phase is full-scale involvement and deals with actual physical movements in a mock disaster.

In 2021, Weber said, they’ll start the planning process for a 2022 full-scale presentation that will involve the public. She said a full-scale exercise takes 12-18 months to prepare and plan for.

A key question at Weber’s Charles City presentation was how the public is informed about where to go or what to do when disaster strikes, especially when the whole south side of town is without power.

“It’s definitely a good point and I don’t yet have that answer. We have been trying to figure out what’s the best possible way to get that information out,” said Weber. “This all is as much help for me as it is for you guys.”

Weber said the hub for resources and information would be the EOC (Emergency Operation Center) and that there are 12 area shelters designated in Charles City.

Justin DeVore, director of communications and  community engagement for the Charles City Community School District, informed the group about potential responses if dealing with a crisis.

“We’ll start with opening the North Grand Building,” said DeVore, who is also public information officer for Floyd County. “When we reach maximum occupancy, we’ll bump people up to the high school.”

DeVore said the North Grand Building could house 100 people. He said a fleet of about 16 school buses could help transport the elderly, young or sick to the emergency destinations.

Charles City Police Chief Hugh Anderson said the Cedar Valley Transportation Center could also be a location to house those affected by the ice storm. The Floyd County Courthouse was also mentioned.

Lisa Hintgen, representing the Floyd County Medical Center, said the hospital has 25 physical beds, with about 15 more beds in other departments that could possibly be utilized. She said the hospital would need state approval to be able to allow the use of more than the 25 beds.

Hintgen said people that needed shelter could stay in the cafeteria or be housed temporarily in the hallways.

Other suggestions to house people during a disaster were the youth enrichment center at the fairgrounds and possibly getting residents moved to other houses in town that had power on the north side.

“You’re not going to put healthy people in with sick people if you can avoid it,” said Dawn Staudt, American Medical Response station supervisor.

Staudt also said that people with diabetes need access to food sooner than other residents that may be displaced from their home and access to medication.

DeVore said he has access to Facebook, texting, email and other alerts, as well as media contacts, that could help facilitate getting information where it needs to be.

“We can push that out,” he said.

A big part of Weber’s exercise was to constantly throw wrenches in the scenario to get the group to think on the fly and come up with solutions to evolving problems.

A few examples she demonstrated were to say no generators were available in the city limits and one instance that had to be played out dealt with a bus stranded at a convenience store.

That dilemma dealt with a group of 15 elderly people from Black Hawk County that were on a trip to the casino in Northwood. As they were passing past Charles City, the bus encountered a flat tire and was stranded at the Kwik Star near the Avenue of the Saints.

With no generators and the south side being without power, the pumps would not work to fuel the bus. Council member Keith Starr suggested the group was fine where they were for the time being because there were five hours of fuel left to power the bus while a contingency plan was devised to get them out of harm’s way.

Each shelter would need necessary supplies like blankets, toilet paper, water and cots. Weber said emergency management has two sets each of 50 cots and blankets that come with pillows.

One twist to the scenario dealt with non-English speaking residents and what the procedure was to be able to communicate with them. Anderson said there are several interpreters on his police force and DeVore said various school personnel speak many different languages that could prove invaluable in assisting someone to safety.

Another key question that arose from the group was who is in charge?

Weber said she would be the EOC manager and Chief Anderson stated there needs to be an incident commander. Weber said that responsibility usually falls onto the mayor of the town or city, but said City Administrator Steve Diers and Mayor Dean Andrews could play a dual role in that capacity.

Weber summed up how she thought Charles City’s first tabletop exercise went.

“It’s so valuable. It was a good discussion and it was a lot of feedback. I already knew that probably 50 percent of the people here had never been through a tabletop,” she said.

“They didn’t really know what to expect. I kind of fed them quite a bit, just to get them thinking outside of the box, thinking a little bit farther. That’s the whole point of these.”

The next tabletop meeting for Charles City is scheduled for 4 p.m. today. Attendees will return evaluations they filled out and discuss some of the feedback.