Emergency Exercise handouts provided to the Unified Command team with updated information.
Tropical Storm Cora hurled 145 mile-per-hour winds to the coast of Connecticut, causing flood warnings in all eight counties, 400,000 outages across the state — and a sense of urgency throughout the the New Haven’s subterranean Emergency Operations Center.
New Haven government department heads tackled the storm Wednesday inside the EOC at 200 Orange St. It wasn’t a real storm; they were practicing to be ready for when a real one comes.
They took part in an annual Governor’s Emergency Planning and Preparedness Initiative exercise, sponsored by the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and the Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
Department heads make up the Unified Command team athe EOC.
Heads of eight public-safety departments comprise the “New Haven Unified Command Team.” They came together to undertake pre-storm planning, response, and a recovery. Participants were asked to identify requirements, critical issues, and decisions or questions that should be addressed in their respective municipality in response to the next statewide emergency.
In the days prior to the incoming hurricane, the Unified Command Team created a mandatory evacuation plan. Members created a mandatory evacuation pamphlet filled with directions of where to go and what to bring, to provide to the families that are forced to be displaced to evacuation centers in the midst of a tropical storm.
Preparation procedures begin “as soon as we see the possibility of a hurricane track coming up to the East Coast,” said City Engineer Giovanni Zinn. He said “activities will start three to four days ahead of time” with an eye toward “closely following the forecast.”
Fontana delivers an inject.
The annual exercise differs every year, according to city emergencymanagement chief Rick Fontana. Last year, the exercise centered around a school emergency, requiring forced evacuation of students.
Unified Command received 25 “injects” throughout the course of the 2‑hour simulation, which prompted different departments to adjust to updated requests quickly and accordingly.
“It’s all about communication,” said Fontana. He said it is effective with “all of those components operating together” to achieve the “overall plan to keep public safety first.”
Zinn displaying new software that lets city engineers attack a storm from a more precise quantitative approach.
In the midst of the storm, Fontana announced that rain levels had surged. He turned to Zinn to tell the group what his departmental course of action will be.
“We have flooding up to Elevation 9,” said Zinn. “That means we’re sealing off the 200 passes on Long Wharf…
“Twelve to 24 inches of rain activating flood defenses in Westville,” Zinn reported with a glance at his computer monitor. “I would assume there would be a travel ban of some sort. … We need to keep people off the infrastructure next to the water.”
Zinn introduced a new software program to the mix. It gathers data from an airplane that flies over Connecticut and is used to analyze topographic information, such as elevation in different flood-prone areas. It helps the team use quantitative data to come up with a range of possible outcomes and solutions in the case of a flood emergency.
Fire Chief John Alston, Jr.
Wednesday’s exercise continued with Fontana asking for reports from the different facets of the Unified Command, including the representatives from the fire, police, and parks departments
Allison Park Photo
“Everybody has to be on the same page,” Fontana said. He said that “now is the time to make a mistake” so that the Unified Command can learn from the experience and collectively adjust accordingly. “Together,” he said, “we get it done.”
