Ice storm debriefing covers challenges, lessons learned

by Peter Jakey–Managing Editor

There was a Presque Isle County Northern Michigan Ice Storm debriefing last Friday at the Presque Isle Board of Commissioners’ room to discuss lessons learned and plans moving forward. 

Attending the 90-minute meeting were representatives from Presque Isle Electric & Gas Cooperative (PIE & G), local law enforcement, county, city, state and township government officials, as well as emergency medical personnel.

“Each one of your companies and departments play a crucial role in how we carry out functions in emergencies in the county,” said Presque Isle County emergency services’ director Sarah Melching.

Melching went through the chain of events that led to wide-spread damage, including downed power lines and the subsequent outages, loss of communications, along with the blocked roads that crippled the county.

She then opened the meeting with discussion to talk about what went well, the challenges and what needs to be done in the future.

“We do not have a designated PIO, public information officer, we need one,” said Melching emphatically. “This county is very unique in that we do not have full-time fire departments, and often our EMS/police departments can be stretched thin. When we get into situations like this, and a PIO is a key link for communications between the incident and the public.

She said, “Presque Isle County Sheriff Joe Brewbaker served in the role when there were threats made against PIE & G, but he is often out in the field and not available to serve in the emergency operations center (EOC)…our responders are out responding to the incident.”

“We need people trained in the Michigan Critical Incident Management System (MICIMS). It’s a system that allows us to communicate directly with the state in time of need, typing into a computer, what is happening, requesting resources etc.,” Melching continued. 

“We struggled with this tool in our communication box until the EOC became staffed with the help from Team Rubicon, who responds to disasters across the nation. They were at the California wildfires before arriving in northern Michigan in early April.

“Once communications and power were back up and running at the EOC and Team Rubicon were in place we quickly got things rolling for the county. Currently, we have only three individuals trained to provide assistance in MICIMS during an incident, it’s not enough.”

“The county does not have a social media page, emergency management does. Emergency management operates solely in a silo from the county and it should not be that way when it comes to tools to communicate with the public. We need county employees to assist during incidents like this, we need quick access to provide resources to the public whether through phone, social media or website.”  

Melching said the county page would not be for posting controversial subjects or debates, but to get critical information out to residents.  

A storm resource website similar to what Montmorency County has created would be ideal.  However, Melching is not full time and has to methodically plan out her time in the office and time often does not allow for everything she would like to accomplish.

“We need to have people trained in CodeRED,” Melching said. The only county employees trained are Melching and 911 director Renee Szymanski.

“We need department heads to step up and utilize CodeRED,” she said.

“There also needs to be EOC staffing/education, and in the future, EOC activation exercises annually”, Melching said.

However, Alpena Michigan State Police Post commander, 1st Lt. Anthony Utt cautioned that some volunteers can lose interest quickly.

“They are good for one, two, three days and then they are gone,” Utt spoke up near the end of the meeting. “These positions really need to be filled by county employees, people that are getting paid.”

Utt also recommended the Presque Isle County Board of Commissioners get Melching connected to Starlink for immediate internet access. “A lot of the counties are getting it as backups,” said Utt.

Additionally, Melching spoke about the importance of federally required National Incident Management System (NIMS) training for all responders… without it, a county runs the risk of being denied federal assistance.  

Melching plans to coordinate with local organizations and volunteers for sheltering.  She plans to create an organization called the Presque Isle County Volunteer Organizations Assisting During Disaster.  This group will meet quarterly.  She hopes to have the first meeting date posted soon to discuss the recent storm and make plans for the future for a more seamless process.

“We need one/two centralized, shelters in the county,” said Melching. “We cannot function with six to eight to 10 shelters opening and closing due to outages etc. It’s very challenging for residents. If we have one or two shelters with all the resources, that will be ideal and much easier to manage.

“Using schools is great, but if the incident does not involve school-aged children and they are at the facility attending school, we typically cannot use.

“It’s a challenge in a county this size to do exercises when you don’t have full-time departments, but we have to figure out a way because it just makes life easier when something does happen,” said Melching. “We hope the Michigan National Guard chooses Rogers City as an addition to their Northern Exposure exercise next summer.

“We will, eventually, put out an after-action review from this meeting that will be made available to the public.”