nothin FEMA: City’s Prepared For Disaster | New Haven Independent

FEMA: City’s Prepared For Disaster

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Capt. Frank Ricci evaluates “evacuee” Albanese for radiation.

If the Millstone Nuclear Power Station had melted down, New Haven was ready.

That’s the assessment of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after watching the city react to a simulated Millstone accident.

Every four years, FEMA evaluates New Haven firefighters, other emergency personnel, public health officials and volunteers from the Red Cross on their preparedness for a malfunction of the power plant.

This past June, more than 100 people participated in a drill held on the Southern Connecticut State University campus, where they had to demonstrate that they have the equipment, knowledge and procedures in place to handle evacuees from the communities that would be most impacted by a disaster, namely the towns of Lyme, Old Lyme and East Lime, which are much closer to the plant than New Haven. (Read more about the drill here.)

New Haven Emergency Operations Center Director Rick Fontana said evaluators were assessing how well people who might have been exposed to radiation — simulated with the use of volunteers — were handled.

“Evacuee” Joe gets help from the Red Cross during the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant disaster drill.

Volunteer evacuees” like Joseph Albanese were assessed for radiation particles. If they were deemed contaminated they went through a decontamination process that, depending on the severity of the contamination, involved everything from just treating their hands to their whole bodies. For those deemed uncontaminated, there was a process for helping them find shelter, transportation and reunite with their families.

The New Haven Host Community Emergency Management, Fire Department, SCSU Police Department, and volunteers demonstrated knowledge of their emergency response plans and procedures and adequately implemented them,” evaluators wrote in their report.

Evaluators noted one area requiring corrective action, or ARCA” when it came to evacuee monitoring and decontamination. It centered on a couple of instances of possible cross contamination in the decontamination station. In one instance, an evacuee took a walking stick from the contaminated area to the decontaminated area without the stick being surveyed for contamination. In another instance, a potentially contaminated evacuee moved into the clean area before the contamination survey process was completed, according to the report.

In both instances, re-training occurred and staff then performed the operations correctly,” evaluators wrote, which meant that the response of New Haven personnel was conducted with no deficiencies.

Evaluators also lavished praise on those who manned the New Haven Host Community Reception Center,” pointing out that the reception center manager/incident commander demonstrated excellent direction and control throughout the exercise. The reception center staff did a terrific job of setting up their sections in preparation to receive evacuees from the Millstone Emergency Planning Zone communities.”

Fontana (pictured on the day of the drill) said federal authorities conduct these drills in communities near the 100 nuclear power plants all over the country. To receive an evaluation with no deficiencies is a big deal, particularly for all those involved. He said there were a number of rookie firefighters involved in this year’s drill and they did a exceptionally well.” He said this year’s results were far superior than those of previous years.

Assistant Fire Chief of Operations Matt Marcarelli (pictured) echoed Fontana, saying that it was a badge of honor” to have an outside agency come in, evaluate the department’s efforts, and give a resounding stamp of approval. He said he believed one reason for the drill’s success is that every member of the fire department has been trained on a uniform information management system that allowed everyone to be on the same page when it came to communication and coordination.

They always some element of change into the exercise but because we were so well planned, anything that they could throw at us wouldn’t change our response,” he said. We’re pretty much prepared for anything.”

Anything included being prepared for pets that might have been contaminated by radioactive particles.

It took a great deal of planning, coordination and a lot of training and the evaluators liked the results,” he said. We’re pretty happy with that and the firefighters should be commended on their performance.”


We had a number of our rookies there they did a great job exceptionally well

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