Emergency training gets agencies on same page

By Barbara Brown
Thirty-five key emergency responders from Chisago County attended a 2-day course on the Minnesota Incident
Management System (MIMS),
April 9 and 10, at the new North Branch Fire Hall.
The 16-hour program was meant to give the emergency response personnel, police, health officials, area schools and communication aides a dry-run emergency response scenario to test out the method by which a disaster would be handled.
ìMIMS is our state approved model for providing on-scene incident management during an emergency or disaster, be it severe weather, hazardous material, wild fires or other events threatening life and property,î said Jim Halstrom, county director of emergency management.
The entire program was funded completely through grant money, Hallstrom said. He said ìusing the money to organize a countywide safety meeting ñ itís worth it.î
ìIt provides an organizational structure and operating policies for on-scene responders to an incident.î
Halstrom said the scenario was presented to the class as a 737-passenger jet crash with several fully engulfed fires and an elementary school close by with students and staff still inside.
The large group was divided into several smaller groups including command, which is in charge of keeping all the groups on the same page and sane during an emergency; operations, logistics and finance.
Its purpose is to minimize casualty and property loss during a real disaster through practice with terminology, shared goals and tactical objectives, and an understanding of the roles of others, Halstrom said.
ìIt also allows for the combining of resources during an incident.î
Key emergency responders attending the course include the countyís sheriffís office, police departments, fire departments, and Lakes Region Emergency Medical Service, representatives from the school districts, county highway, county health, Fairview Lakes and Chisago County Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES).
ìThis is an important training event for our emergency responders, and a big step forward in better preparing ourselves for potential emergencies or disasters in the county,î Halstrom said.
ìWhile we can never fully anticipate or be totally prepared for what may come our way, we can at least train together to better manage the incident and lessen its impact,î he added.
Kevin Leuer, senior planner for the stateís Division of Emergency Management conducted the class.
He s a former chief and a 22-year member of the Plymouth Fire Department.
Leuer literally wrote the book on MIMS in Minnesota.
Leuer gave the attendees an overview of emergency threats and the need for an all-inclusive incident management system to respond to such threats.
He also addressed the roles of the incident commander and special staff like safety officer, liaison officer and public information officer.
All those posts must work well together to make sure information is correct and up to date for the men and women responding to the incident and for the public.
In the operations group, the tasks include managing tactical operations at the incident scene. The function is faced with having major demands on planning, execution and resources.
In the planning phase, the collection, evaluation, dissemination and use of information about the developing scene is used. The people on this team would continuously assess damage and consider needs for the future.
For the logistics team, the group discusses the element of incident command for providing facilities, services and material in response to the incident.
The finance and administrative section addresses the requirement to track all incident costs and evaluate the financial considerations of the incident.

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