Networking, Coordinating, and Outreach

**How "Volusia Prepares"**

**August 9, 2002**

# Author: Charles C. Craig

**Emergency Services Coordinator**

**Volusia County Emergency Management Division**

**49 Keyton Drive**

**Daytona Beach, Florida 32124**

**E-mail:** <ccraig@co.volusia.fl.us>

**phone: (386) 258-4088**

As is the case throughout Florida, the communities of Volusia County are
vulnerable to a wide range of physical, meteorological and technological
disasters. This fact has been demonstrated by the very high human and
economic costs of events that have recently (during the past 5 years)
impacted this part of the state. A coastal county in east central
Florida, Volusia with 48 miles of coastline and approximately 1,100
square miles of land has a major tourist attraction in a NASCAR
racetrack and many special event venues bringing over 200,000 visitors
each. County and city leaders along with Volusia County Emergency
Management, in an effort to eliminate and/or minimize the impacts of
future disasters, developed and implemented a hazard mitigation program
or \"Local Mitigation Strategy\" (LMS). Entitled Volusia 2020, this
initiative successfully formed a strong public/private partnership
predicated on using "2020 hindsight" to correct mistakes of the past,
"2020 insight" to grasp the County's vulnerabilities and risks and "2020
foresight" to plan for a secure future as a disaster resistant and
resilient community all by the year 2020. The Florida Department of
Community Affairs provided grant funding in 1997 and 1998 for risk
assessments and mitigation strategy development. Partnering with the
local communities and businesses identified over 100 local projects and
programs that proposed to: harden critical facilities through aggressive
shuttering programs, alleviate flooding through special drainage
projects (including elevation of flood prone properties), and
preparation of the urban wildfire interface areas with horizontal and
dry wells that could be activated in times of fire threats. This
volunteer effort by all sectors of the community -- public and private,
government and industry -- contributed to the economic development of
our county by providing job opportunities and resource usage while
enacting mitigation and recovery initiatives to the impact of
emergencies and disasters. Emergencies and disasters continued to occur
in Volusia County at an average of four per year. These included
tornadoes, windstorms, wildfires, rain events and brushes with tropical
storms and hurricanes and the terrorist event of 2001. The mitigative
programs that were completed decidedly lessened the impact of these
events over previous years.

With the need for more partnering and coordination now clearly defined
but a staff of only seven plus the director, Volusia County Emergency
Management had to develop a flexible team approach to task assignments.
These were within Emergency Management's three (3) major program
elements of Planning; Operations, Training and Public Education; and
Administration and Logistics. This was necessary in order to become the
catalysts for change to prevention and mitigation. Staff was asked to be
professionally involved in all aspects of each area, in fact it was
expected. Partnering, with private industry, networking and coordinating
as well as public education and outreach became an important part of all
staff work. Partnering with the American Red Cross and the Halifax
Chamber of Commerce, allowed low cost business continuity "Emergency
Management Planning Workshops for Business, Industry and Government" to
be offered to local businesses. Partnering with local churches, the
American Red Cross and other allied agencies to form Volusia
Interfaiths/Agencies Networking in Disasters (VIND) to provide local
crisis counseling and relief post disaster and education pre-disaster.
Partnering with the Volusia County School Board, County government, area
hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities resulted in the
placement of weather alert radios in all county facilities, as well as
all schools, hospitals and most healthcare facilities.

Subsequently in 2000, Volusia County applied and was one of seven
counties in the state of Florida to be designated as a FEMA **Project
Impact** Community, primarily on the strength of all the proactive
mitigative activity from the LMS and the results of our networking.
Partnering with the Ormond Beach Fire Department, Florida Alliance for
Safe Homes (FLASH), Institute of Business and Home Safety (IBHS),
Florida Dept. of Emergency Management, and the Volusia Homebuilders
Association in the construction of a Fire Information and Risk Education
(FIRE) house. This is an example of a mitigated residential home
illustrating by cutaway the construction measures taken to resist storm
disasters and Firewise construction and landscaping techniques.
Partnering was also accomplished with the Daytona Beach Partnership, a
non-profit organization charged with implementing Rebuild America,
Waterfronts Florida, and Project Impact initiatives within the downtown
business district. Under these programs, property owners or tenants
planning façade improvements, signage or outdoor lighting mitigation
projects have access to University of Florida experts to perform energy
efficiency and disaster mitigation assessments. Partnering with
Community Services to implement a Project Impact grant to perform
mitigation measures during residential remodeling brought new roof
systems to low to moderate-income homeowners, thus stimulating the local
economy. Our mentoring relationships expanded to offering the
opportunity to review/ test (tabletop exercise) preparedness plans for
local businesses. Several businesses seized the opportunity including
the International Speedway Corporation, Bethune-Cookman College, the
Stewart--Marchman Corporation and Tyco Healthcare Kendall. Private
industry is realizing that a disaster resistant community is able to
recover from a disaster with less property losses, business closings and
missed workdays. They also now perceive the need to understand how to
interface with local government agencies during emergencies. Thus the
shift from the Planning area to the Operations, Training and Public
Education area was subtle. All staff now supported the tabletop
exercises, as they were real time tests of existing plans in existing
facilities. The lessons learned revealed additional needs resulting in
additional coordination and planning. The Administration and Logistics
folks managed the budget, did grant administration and monitored the
operational supportive purchases.

Looking at our incident history and realizing that 90% of all
Presidentially declared disasters were weather related, led us to apply
for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's National
Weather Service designation of **Storm Ready**, which we received in
2001. We joined early on more than 419 communities countrywide and 25
out of Florida's 67 counties with this designation. Integrating Storm
Ready principals into our annual training programs had meant more
trained severe weather spotters to protect Volusia County. Now county
agency representatives and private agency representatives shared a
common training base with our Ham radio clubs and public protection
personnel. Our formal hazardous weather plan for tornadoes was
successfully coordinated with the School Board and provided for
participation in a statewide tornado drill each year. The Storm Ready
program requires that systems be in place to monitor local weather,
alert and notify the public, activate warning points and promote
preparedness through community seminars. Our mitigation initiative of
placing weather radios helped to prepare the community and aided in the
Storm Ready qualification. What better integration could we have created
than Volusia 2020, Project Impact, and Storm Ready to bolster our
community's disaster resistance. And to think these designations were
the direct result of planning, coordinating and networking outreaches!

After September 11, 2001, Emergency Management began coordinating with
the hospitals and Daytona International Speedway as preparation for
potential mass casualty incidents during the Daytona 500, and the Pepsi
400 races. These venues entice some 240,000 people at each event each
year. Planning coordination quickly grew to include Daytona Beach
Police, Volusia County Fire Services, the FBI, U.S. Customs, EVAC
ambulance, Volusia County Department of Health, the Medical Examiner,
the International Speedway Corporation and the hospitals. Soon after, we
had an AMTRAK Autotrain derailment in an adjacent rural county with
limited resources which we were able to support with county and private
resources. All the hospitals wanted Incident Command System (ICS)
training, which was completed and are now in advanced Hospital Incident
Command System (HEICS) training. Tabletop exercises are programmed to
follow. Recent local, state and national political and bureaucratic
changes of recent years have suggested a moniker change from Project
Impact to "Florida Prepares", and logically, "Volusia Prepares".
Regardless of the moniker, Volusia County is better prepared. Are we
storm proof or disaster proof...No! But our survivability quotient has
risen sharply.

This previously related series of events reveals how planning leads to
coordination and networking which leads to operations, education,
awareness and the leveraging of mutually supportive endeavors monitored
and managed by administration and logistics. The more you plan, the more
you need to coordinate and network and reach more people, the more ideas
of needs and vulnerabilities are generated, the more agencies and
entities become involved, the more networking and partnering must be
done and so the spiral grows... The problem is the execution requires
more staff, more hours, and more resources. The key is prioritizing
workloads and task assignments. Each member of the staff does public
presentations. Two focus primarily in the mitigation and plans arena,
two are responsible for operations and daily duty officer
responsibilities, one functions in the healthcare/special
needs/sheltering area and two handle budget, grant management, database
management and office management.

With the advent of Homeland Security initiatives and requirements and
now Citizen Corps responsibilities, the Emergency Management plate is
fuller than ever. And, we haven't impacted land use and growth
management from the mitigation perspective yet.

There is so much more coordination, partnering, and networking to be
done. Hopefully, commensurate with expanding roles and responsibilities
will come the opportunity for staff expansion. This will open the door
for the multi-talented emergency manager of the future. Those who can
step into the outreach and networking role while still able to plan,
operate and administer. These emergency managers will have a tremendous
impact as Volusia and other counties "Prepare".

*NOTE: Volusia County Government is a Charter Government with a County
Council and County Manager. The County Manager oversees six (6)
Departments. Emergency Management is one of seven divisions that fall
under the Public Protection Department. We have an extremely supportive
Department head and County Manager and since 1997 have put over 500
Volusia County employees thru courses at FEMA's Emergency Management
Institute in Emmitsburg, Maryland.*