Fairfield County
Emergency
Management Agency
241 W Main Street
Suite 100
Lancaster, OH 43130
(740) 654-4357
Jon Kochis, Director
, Issue
Articles Inside:

New mobile device application.

Dam Safety System

Radios for Schools
Fairfield County Office of Emergency
Management & Homeland Security
Updates
New EMA App for Androids and iOS
The Fairfield County
Emergency Management Agency is
pleased to announce
their release of a new
application for your
mobile device. The
new application is now
available on the Apple
Store and the Google
Play Store. Just search
“Fairfield County
EMA” and it should
pop up as a free download.
The application is designed to offer you
services directly to
your phone. You can
now access the NOAA
weather radio service,
the OHGO Traffic service, and sign up for
Alert Fairfield
notifications
right from our
application.
You will also be
able to send us
immediate notification of any
damage to your
property resulting from
natural or
manmade disasters. Simply
tell us about
your damage,
and you can
even upload a
photo.
We also encourage you to sign up
for our Twitter and
Facebook page so that
all of our notifications
get directly to you.
Buckeye Lake Dam Safety Notification System
In a joint effort of the
Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR)
and the Fairfield County
EMA, we are currently
installing two new warning sirens in the Buckeye
Lake region to notify residents and
visitors of an emergency situation
resulting from a
dam failure. These
2 new sirens and
Con’t on page 2
Evacuation Routes
Page 2
Fairfield County Office of Emergency Management & Homeland Security
Updates
Sirens helping
our citizens be
safe.
MEETING
DATE
Fairfield County Local
Emergency Planning
Committee (LEPC) and
Emergency Planning
Meeting:
The next meeting date will be
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Dam Safety - con’t!
other sirens in the area
will be able to alert people to evacuate with special tones in case the dam
would experience a
breach.
In addition to the new
sirens, a software program is also being purchased that will help the
emergency notification
system to do checks and
maintenance on the
county’s complete notification system to
ensure that the system
is notifying the residents as it should.
With the vast area of
the county, this will
make our notification
system better pre-
pared in case of a disaster. In the past we have
had to rely on manpower
and local residents to
notify the EMA office if a
siren was not functioning
correctly. This new system will be an additional
resource in the maintenance of the system.
Sirens continue to be one
way of communicating
emergency information
to the citizens of Fairfield
County. The EMA also
Reach the
CERT/MRC
Coordinators:
740-652-7981
Citizen Corps (CERT/MRC)
Thanks again to our
many members of our
volunteer teams. It is
nice to know that we
have dozens of trained
individuals that would
be willing, able, and
happy to help out our
county citizens in time
of disaster or emergency.
Recently we again
offered the CPR/First
Aid training to our
newly trained CERT
members. By offering
For more details:
www.
buckeyelakedamsafety.
com
Gilliam Retires
at 9 AM at the Fairfield
County EMA/EOC.
continues to encourage the use of other
forms of emergency
notification and communication including
Alert Fairfield (reverse
notification phone system), NOAA Weather
Radios, local news coverage, and Social Media (including Twitter
and Facebook).
continued trainings
and opportunities, we
hope that we will keep
our volunteers prepared with the skills
and resources they
need to stay prepared.
In April we said
goodbye to Bill
Gilliam from our
office. Bill had been
our Operations and
Planning manager
for the past several
years, and he decided to move on to
spend more time
with the family and
grandkids. We send
Bill off with best
wishes and hope
that he can now enjoy all his free time.
We look forward to
announcing our new
hire at the September LEPC meeting.
Page 3
HAZMAT TIDBITS:
Special Operations Team (SOT) ~ HazMat, Water Rescue, ISO
Recently a high-profile
watercraft accident on
Buckeye Lake resulted
in the deaths of two
boaters. FCSOT divers
were called to Seller’s
Point on March 28th to
assist in the recovery of
two men whose small
craft had capsized in
strong wind and waves.
Millersport/Walnut
Township Fire Department crews had recovered one of the men
floating on the water, but
unfortunately it was too
late. The FCSOT crews
assisted with the surface
search in an advisory
role, and interviewed
multiple people at scene
and along the west
shore. Arriving at a definite Point Last Seen was
very hard, as no one
physically witnessed the
boat flip over. Conditions
were very rough, and
sonar use was very hard.
Crews from Licking County Dive Team and several
fire departments assisted
ODNR officers and Ohio
Watercraft boat crews.
EMA helping Schools Be Prepared!!!
The EMA has recently
joined in an endeavor
to help our
schools with their
communication
needs in case of a
disaster or emergency. Since
phone systems can get
busy and jammed with
the increased call volume, and the chain of
communication from
the dispatchers to the
boots on the ground,
schools have decided
to get communication
equipment that can
talk directly with the
First Responders on the
scene.
With this plan, the EMA
and other key personnel with law enforcement, fire responders,
and school administration have worked together to obtain the
best communication
tools that will work well
with the current system
the first responders use
everyday. Several of
the schools in the county are moving forward
to investing in this technology with the help of
grant dollars.
The team was called
back in Monday when
conditions allowed
ODNR Watercraft to
operate side scan sonar much more effectively, and also allowed
K-9 units to work. Using side scan sonar targets, witness interviews, and wind driven
debris path charting,
the second person was
located in approximately 6’ of water,
very close to the location thought to be the
highest probability.
This operation was a
good example of today’s technology and
good investigation tactics combing to limit
the amount of dive
time needed. Numerous stumps, debris,
and fishing lines were
in the area underwater. The victim was
recovered by personnel working from the
front of a boat, using
long boat poles, minimizing exposure to
divers to hostile conditions.
The U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency
order on May 7, 2014, requiring
all railroads operating trains
containing large amounts of
Bakken crude oil to notify State
Emergency Response Commissions (SERCs) about the operation of these trains through
their states. The emergency order requires that each railroad
operating trains containing
more than 1,000,000 gallons of
Bakken crude oil, or approximately 35 tank cars, in a particular state to provide the SERC
notification regarding the expected movement of such trains
through the counties in that
state. The notification must
include estimated volumes of
Bakken crude oil being transported, frequencies of anticipated train traffic and the route
through which Bakken crude oil
will be transported
New 4-Gas Monitors
Thanks to a recent grant award
from the Bluegrass Pipeline
Community Grant, county fire
departments and the Fairfield
County Special Operations Team
were able to purchase much
needed 4-Gas Meters for Emergency Response. The Ventis Gas
Meters are equivalent to what
the departments use now to find
gas leaks. The new meters went
to Hocking Township, Clearcreek
Township and the FCSOT. The
FCSOT was also able to purchase
a Docking Station which
calibrates the
meters and is
an asset to
have.
Fairfield County
Emergency Management
Agency
Our Mission
241 West Main Street, Suite 100
Lancaster, OH 43130
Phone: 740-654-4357
Fax: 740-652-1520
E-mail: [email protected]
To establish, coordinate and
sustain partnerships throughout
Fairfield County, united in efforts
to prepare for emergencies and
to minimize loss of life and
property and help the community
to return to normalcy when they
occur.
We’re on the WEB at
www.fairfieldema.com
Facts you
may or
may not
know!
HOW LONG DO TORNADOES LAST?
Most tornadoes last only two
or three minutes. The kind
that we see in videos and the
kind that do the damage we
see on the news probably
average about 15 minutes.
HOW FAST DO TORNADOES MOVE?
The few tornadoes that have
been timed seem to average
about 35 miles per hour, but
every year some are seen to
stand still and others are
clocked at 60 miles per hour.
DO THEY
EVER OCCUR IN THE
MOUNTAINS?
Tornadoes have occurred in
every kind of terrain. They
are rare in mountainous
areas, but a well developed
tornado is probably not
affected by the shape of
the land underneath it
HOW BIG
IN DIAMETER DO
TORNADOES GET?
Tornadoes have been
known to range in diameter from 3 feet to two
miles.
OKAY, OKAY, SO IF TRAILERS
DON'T ATTRACT TORNADOES,
WHY DO SO MANY TRAILER
PARKS GET HIT BY TORNADOES?
There are probably hundreds (maybe more than a
thousand) very small tornadoes that touch down in
the USA every year, but
are not recorded because
they do no damage. However, since a mobile home
flips over so easily in even
the weakest tornado, trailers probably act as “mini
tornado” detectors.
HOW STRONG A
WIND DOES IT
REALLY TAKE TO BLOW OVER A
MOBILE HOME?
Lightweight mobile homes
can be flipped by a 60 mile
per hour wind. Heavier
mobile homes may not go
until 70 or 80 miles per
hour. And a tied down
trailer might stay put at
110 miles per hour.
WHICH WAY DO TORNADOES
TURN?
Cyclonically, of course!
Tornadoes turn counterclockwise in the northern
hemisphere. Warm air
sweeps north, jet streams
come in from the west,
creating a situation in
which the storms rotate
counterclockwise. The
tornadoes usually rotate
that same way. Sometimes
opposite direction swirls
develop under a thunderstorm. And about 1 in 100
tornadoes rotate clockwise. The situation is just
the opposite in the southern hemisphere (well, not
quite the opposite, but
close).
WHY
ARE SOME TORNADOES
WHITE, SOME BLACK, AND
OTHERS RED? HOW MANY
COLORS DO THEY COME IN?
Most tornadoes are either
white, black, or gray depending on how light is
striking them. Tornadoes
often occur on the west
side of a thunderstorm in
the late afternoon. Viewed
from the west, they would
look white in the strong
sunlight. Viewed from the
east, back lit, they would
be very dark in color. All
manner of greys are possible.
Info from:
http://www.tornadoproject.
com/cellar/tttttt.htm