Worcester Among Best-Prepared Cities in MA For Emergencies
Friday, April 26, 2013
The City of Boston, under extraordinarily difficult circumstances demonstrated its ability to implement and carry out its emergency plan, coordinating with federal, state and local law enforcement, medical personnel, hospitals, Homeland Security and the National Guard.
Worcester receives accolades in EMS
The City of Worcester, ranking as Massachusetts’ second largest city, hosting a population of over 181,000, received accolades from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Association (MEMA) as being one of the best prepared cities in the Commonwealth.
“From a historic standpoint, Worcester has always had one of the best Emergency Management plans in the Commonwealth. They have excellent leadership from the top administrators right on down,” said Peter Judge, Public Information Officer for MEMA. There is a lot of support in the community and at the government level for emergency services in the city.”
“Every city or state is tasked with identifying its own issues and not every community has the same needs,” said Judge. “The needs keep changing, too. After the civil war we had emergency defense, the cold war was emergency preparedness and now we take an all hazards approach. The central part of the state has different standards-challenges every year. There are major weather activities in that area of the state and lots of snow to be dealt with in winter.”
“In order to achieve accreditation an entity has to be one hundred percent compliant,” said Jessica Byrski, spokesperson for the national Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP). “There are sixty four (64) standards that have to be achieved. Conditional accreditation means that you still have standards to achieve, but have met the major requirements.”
The City of Boston achieved national accreditation for its emergency management plan through EMAP and the state of Massachusetts is currently reevaluating the status of its statewide plan.
EMAP is an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to foster both excellence and accountability in emergency management. Accreditation through EMAP is available to all local, state and federal emergency management agencies.
The Commonwealth is presently conditionally accredited at the state level while under reevaluation status.
“The conditional status means that they have submitted a plan to us,” said Byrski. “They may not have met all sixty-four standards, but have submitted a plan for review. They then have nine months to correct or make any adjustments necessary and show that they are fully compliant.
Statewide plan is under review
The state of Massachusetts submitted its plan in October and is due for review in July. The EMAP commission meets twice a year, once in the Spring and once in the Fall, so the state will most likely be heard after the summer season.
“The plans under review are strictly confidential. Specifics on programs that are working towards accreditation are not released by EMAP until accreditation has been met” said Byrski.
“State and local agencies are not required to participate and many do not have the resources, manpower and time available to reach the stringent standards set by EMAP,” said Judge. “The state of Massachusetts is in the process of renewing their accreditation. There are term limits on the accreditation and Massachusett’s is up for review. The standards sometimes change over a period of time and we have reviewed the present standards and are confident that we will receive full accreditation at review time,” said Judge.
“The EMAP certification program is an asset for Emergency Management teams. It is a standard that we use for self-evaluation. There are standards that have to be met for certification and like the present situation, we are using the recertification process to self-evaluate. It gives us the time to take a look at our program and readjust - make any necessary changes and improvements that we find appropriate.”
Joining Boston in accreditation is Providence, Rhode Island, as one of four cities who achieved national accreditation, along with Austin, Texas and Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“The accreditation program is important because it gets everyone headed in the same direction,” said Kevin Gallup, Vice President of the Rhode Island Association of Emergency Managers (RIAEM). “Everyone at a director’s level has to deal with the issues presented by their own circumstance. Providence has a unique set of circumstances such as its location at the head of Narragansett Bay.”
“It is the state’s largest city. It has circumstances and needs unlike the inland cities of Cranston or even Warwick,” Gallup said. “Providence has the hurricane barrier, storm surge and other issues not seen in other areas. We don’t have multiple cities sitting at the head of the bay.”
“At the local level, not every city or town is seeking accreditation due to lack of resources available and major commitment to the process. Some states, like Massachusetts and others, have counties to as their backbone. They are broken into a more regional approach with tax money coming in, said Gallup. “In Rhode Island you don’t have that. We’ve had eleven federal level disasters in just over 60 years, four of which happened since 2010,” said Gallup.
“Rhode Island has one full-time director in Providence. The others are part-time or playing dual roles as Director, managing police and fire. Some directors are actually volunteer. It’s difficult to take on a project like EMAP when you are fully staffed,” said Joseph Arsenault, President of RIAEM. Providence has the only full-time Director in the state. In other states - nationally they have more resources available.”
Worcester chosen for MEMA conference.
Worcester was chosen as the meeting place for the next MEMA statewide conference to be held on May 28 and 29 at the DCU center.
“Worcester has always been a great leader in emergency management,” said Judge. “That is why it was chosen for the conference.”
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