My name is Edward Levy, I am a graduate of Columbia Southern University and for my project in community based risk reduction I have chosen to evaluate the threat that tornados pose to Streator, Illinois and to produce a program to help mitigate the risk that those events pose. I am a member of the local fire department and own a home in the city.
The city of Streator, Illinois, population 13710, is located in North Central Illinois in LaSalle County. Streator’s location in what is known as the Midwest of the United States provides it with a climate that produces a variety of weather events that have the potential for catastrophic results. Of these weather events the most significant and catastrophic, in terms of potential for injury and loss of life as well as damage to property, is the tornado. Tornados and associated storms bring large volumes of rain, damaging hail, lightening, and strong destructive winds. In 2010 a series of three tornados struck Streator, Illinois causing damage and overwhelming local emergency resources. In 2016 a tornado struck the town of Ottawa, Illinois 14 miles north of Streator also located in LaSalle County causing one death, multiple injuries, and severe damage. Records indicate that there has been seven tornados in Streator, IL since 1903 including the three tornados in 2010.
The key issue as I see it is ensuring that the appropriate people have the appropriate level of training. Every citizen should have some level of training, however not every citizen needs to be a certified storm spotter. Challenges are going to include funding, community involvement, and program longevity. Money is tight everywhere, for everyone. Funding is one of those areas that is going to continually be difficult for all risk reduction programs especially when it will be hard to show the immediate results to the individuals holding the checkbook. Community involvement or engagement is challenging because it is hard to reach people in general. Not everyone reads the paper, not everyone gets online, and not everyone listens to the radio. So you will need to pass the word by as many means necessary to try to engage the public. People are also busy with their own individual lives so that could hinder community engagement also. Lastly program longevity will be difficult unless there is another catastrophic storm in the area to serve as a reminder. The first year when the program is new and exciting and in the highlights it will survive. However after a few years of teaching the program, those who fund the program may begin to see that there is not a need to continually repeat the same class over and over again. As Archilochus said in 650BC, “we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” Although it may seem redundant the repetitive training is important to develop muscle memory in order to encourage appropriate actions during the emergency, and repeat training also helps to reduce cognitive load in a high stress situation.
I propose that in order to facilitate risk reduction in regards to tornados a multi-tiered risk reduction project be conducted. Tier one, which is already in progress, is to become a storm ready community. I propose doing this by establishing a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center, establishing more than one way to receive severe weather warnings and forecasts and to alert the public, creating a system that monitors weather conditions locally, promoting the importance of public readiness through community seminars, and developing a formal hazardous weather plan, which includes training severe weather spotters and holding emergency exercises. Tier two would be community outreach classes intended to influence community risk reduction. These classes would include but not be limited to: “In home disaster kit: what do I need to have”, “Babysitters club: what to do when severe weather strikes”, “The Aftermath: what to do after the tornado passes”, and “Volunteer training: when and how can I help”. After the initial class these classes would need to be conducted annually prior to storm season to ensure that everyone receives the training. No single department should be solely responsible for teaching all the classes. Each class should have a member from the Police, Fire, and Public works department to provide them with information specific to each department’s response to a disaster. Private utility companies like Common Wealth Edison, Nicor, and Illinois American Water should be invited to participate in the classes also to provide utility specific information and may help sponsor courses also. Tier three would be to conduct an annual sand table drill that would require leaders from the city, public works, fire department, and police department to respond to a tornado event in each zone of the city. If possible efforts should be made to involve private organizations such as utility companies, the local hospital, and other key industry in the city. The city is already broken into eight zones for code enforcement by using this existing zones we can plan response to disasters in different areas. This key leader engagement should be conducted as realistically as can be conducted. These leaders should be prepared to plan for immediate response, incident stabilization, clean up, and rebuilding. They should be able to plan for and request budgeting for their response plans, and be able to plan for and request mutual aid from surrounding municipalities and departments. They should also be able to request what assistance they would like from county, state, and federal officials to assist in incident stabilization, clean up, and rebuilding. County, state, and federal officials will most likely not be available for the immediate response because it takes time to mobilize these assets and the initial response will most likely be well underway and or completed by this point. Tier four is review and refine the plan to ensure effectiveness, eliminate waste, and track proper record keeping for renewal of storm ready status every five years.
Tornados and their associated damage are unpreventable. There is no wall, dam, levee, nor special type of construction that will make us immune from their effects. They do not discriminate against any one group of people. They are unpredictable and strike with devastating results. Where we can affect change is how we understand the problem, how we prepare for the problem, how we warn ourselves about the problem, and how we respond to and recover from the problem.
Reference
Barnett, D. J., Balicer, R. D., Fews, A.L., Parker, C. L., & Links, J. M. (2005). The Application of the Haddon Matrix to Public Health Readiness and Response Planning. Environmental Health Perspectives, 113(5), 561-566. doi:10.129/ehp.7491c.
City of Streator. (2017). City of Streator, IL retrieved from: http://www.ci.streator.il.us/
Leitz, Joshua, (2017). Tornado History Project retrieved from: http://www.tornadohistoryproject.com/tornado/Illinois
Mutual Aid Box Alarm System. (2017). Mutual Aid Box Alarm System retrieved from: http://www.mabas-il.org/Pages/default.aspx
National Weather Service. (2010). Streator, IL Tornado – June 5, 2010 retrieved from: https://www.weather.gov/media/lot/events/2010/Jun05/Streator_IL_Tornado.pdf
National Weather Service. (2017). NWS StormReady Program retrieved from: http://www.weather.gov/stormready/
National Weather Service. (2017). The StormReady Recognition Program retrieved from: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/sym/pd01018002curr.pdf
Shaw, R. (Ed.). (2012). Community-based disaster risk reduction. Bingley, England: Emerald.
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