The Emporia Gazette

May 27, 2012

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Like most Kansas communities, Emporia has plans in place for a disaster. But against something on the scale of the Greensburg tornado, even the best plans are going to be strained.

“A Greensburg event is something you plan for, but when it happens, you lose your infrastructure, so you start rebuilding,” said Rick Frevert of Lyon County Emergency Management. “... When you lose your communication center, your phone center, your hospital, there’s not much to do but pack up your bags, back up five and regroup.”

About 95 percent of Greensburg was destroyed by a Friday night tornado rated at an EF-5, the highest category on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The tornado crushed fire engines, fouled water supplies and smashed homes and businesses.

In an event like that, Frevert said, the first step would be to see what’s been hit and get the word out. Pre-assigned teams would check out the damage and what resources are on hand to meet it. If there’s not enough, it’s time to start calling on neighboring counties and the state to send help.

“We’d have to call for mutual aid from our friends and neighbors, as we do from time to time,” Emporia Fire Chief Jack Taylor said.

Meanwhile, city and county officials would let the public know what’s going on through the local media, and start coordinating emergency workers through the police dispatch center. Of course, that gets more complicated if a tornado hits the civic auditorium and takes the dispatch center with it.

Communications can still go through the sheriff’s dispatchers, of course — but the sheriff’s department is just a block from the police department, and any disaster that takes out one could get both. Another alternative is called Communication on Wheels, state-supplied communications trailers that go to an emergency site when local systems are out.

There are also alternate communications sites, Frevert said, but he couldn’t discuss where those were for security reasons. One of the disasters the county and city prepare for is a terrorist attack.

Once the word is out and communications are up and running, what happens next depends on what got damaged. For example, the tornado left Greensburg without a clean water supply. What happens if the Emporia water treatment plant gets wiped out?

The first thing, Frevert said, is for the citizens themselves to be prepared. Each house should store a gallon of water per person for emergencies. That should help people get through the first 72 hours while services are being cobbled together, he said.

Meanwhile, he said, local officials would contact the state emergency management office for reinforcements.

“We’ll tell them ‘We need water purifiers, tankers, bottled water,’ and set up distribution points,” Frevert said. “And port-a-potties — a lot of people forget the comfort needs.”

In an extended emergency, Taylor said, incident management teams may come in from the outside as well.

“Those provide management support for the various agencies — fire service, law enforcement, health — that can come in and relieve the local people, so they don’t get exhausted when this goes on for days or weeks at a time,” Taylor said.

Even for the professionals, a disaster on this scale can be hard to come to terms with.

“I’ve been through Greensburg many, many times, and from the pictures and video I see, there’s nothing I recognize of the community anymore,” said Taylor, who came to Emporia from Liberal. “It’s total devastation.”