Planning for the worst
Posted on Thursday, November 20, 2008
Benton County Central Communications workers went through a mock winter-storm drill that covered Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana in the County Administration Building in Bentonville on
BENTONVILLE—The Benton County Department of Emergency Management is getting prepared for a rough winter, just in case Mother Nature decides to throw northwest Arkansas a snowy curveball in the coming months. “ Every year, we expect to get the bad weather. The mantra in this business is, you plan for the worst and hope for the best, ” Mike Dixon, Deputy Director of the Department of Emergency Management said. Getting ready for the worst meant that the county spent all day Wednesday running through drills coordinated with Washington County, Pulaski County and Little Rock to make sure they touched on every situation imaginable during winter weather. “ The way the exercise works is that the exercise controller, which is a contractor with FEMA, is calling us with the exercises and situations. Then they are re-
how we deal with it and giving us suggestions on how to improve, ” Dixon said.
The winter storm that is being simulated is similar to ice storms previously seen by Benton County.
“ We are using the scenario that we experienced in the ice storms of 1999 as a guide for what could happen, ” Dixon said, “ We just completed an exercise where the radio towers, because of the ice accumulation, have gone down. The focus is how do we deal with that, how do we divert that radio traffic to make sure we are able to respond. ”
When all was said and done, Dixon and the staff of the Department of Emergency Management were a little tired but a lot more prepared for Old Man Winter.
“ The biggest advantage we got was with the staff and being able to have them come in and work with the EOC (Emergency Operations Center ). People are paramount to emergency response and having the experience with the people we had in here was really a great opportunity, ” Dixon said.
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