Four dozen residents learn how to prepare for emergencies

by Dan McClelland

The community room at the Emergency Services Building on Santa Clara Ave. was just about full Wednesday with local residents looking for a heads up on how to best prepare for natural and man-made emergencies and disasters.

The event was sponsored by the New York State Homeland Security and Emergency Services and the state’s National Guard. It was organized and promoted here by Tupper Lake Emergency Services Director Carl Steffen.

For their trouble and interest, each one in attendance that evening received a canvass backpack filled with emergency supplies including work gloves, a mask, duct tape, a collapsible water bottle, batteries, plastic sheets, portable radio, small fire aid kit, a light stick and a small mylar rescue blanket.

The presenters that evening- both from the Army National Guard- were Sgt. First Class Nicodeme Esmel and Lt. Lydia Gerardi.

Lt. Gerardi, with 13 years of military service so far, welcomed the guests that filled most of the seats in the meeting room that evening. She previously served as an E-7 (Sgt.) in the Air National Guard.

She said she served in the medical unit as a medical technician her entire career, with one deployment to Kuwait, on Operation Asylum-seeker.

She said she now operates out of joint force headquarters in Latham, N.Y., division of Military Naval Affairs. Lt. Gerardi is also a military chaplain.

The program involved the screening and narration of 72 slides, with questions from the audience at the end.

In her previous work she was involved in flying missions to Antartica and Greenland using planes equipped with skis to enable them to land on snow and ice.

Her colleague Esmel told the crowd that she was in the unit that flew that emergency mission to the southern most continent to bring needed cancer-fighting medicine to the medical female scientist a number of years ago.

He said her unit had the only planes in the world equipped with the special skis that could bring that life-saving medicine to the scientist.

Sgt. Esmel, introducing himself, said he has served in the Army National Guard for 20 years. “I’ve been with this program since 2019. I started the program, was working with the program, and then COVID hit.

“I started off on the National Guard side….working on light and heavy vehicles. Then I started working on helicopters and became a Black Hawk crew chief. When I was 22 I was stationed in Bagdad for one year, working on the aircraft there.”

He said he later transferred to military intelligence as an analyst. “When you watch your favorite James Bond movie, I was the guy sitting in front of a computer screen and writing all those reports and the guy who doesn’t normally see any sunlight. That was me!”

He said he last worked in that military role “when ISIS was crossing the border in 2013- and at one point I was up and on duty for 56 hours straight. I was one of the lead analysts for army aviation at that time. At that point I completed an 83-page report for Washington to decide what to do, and from that point I was up for 56 hours running operations there.

He said he worked at a number of other military agencies in Washington for a number of years, before moving into information technology.

“That segued into cyber defense, what I currently do on the Army National Guard side of my service.”

Since then he has worked part of the time in emergency communications, at the headquarters for communications for New York State’s Army National Guard.

Two large trailers there house that communications unit that held 70 laptop computers, 200 radios, 25 satellite cell phones and four eco-generators, and two portable dishes which can receive data from everywhere in the world.

“I can show up in your town. If you don’t have power in this building, I’ll load my generators and bring you power. If you don’t have internet, I’ll pull in my dishes and provide you with internet. All your emergency departments can communicate through our radios.” He said his service in that wing of the guard was through 2019.

“So, naturally, when I applied for this job, they asked me when could I start,” he said of the broad range of experience he brought to the new job.

“We respond to a lot of emergencies...a lot of storms!”

Sgt. Esmel said that evening’s course objectives were to make people more aware of natural or human-caused disasters. The four pieces of the course: prepare for, respond to, recover from and how to get involved.

“We work full-time for CPC (Citizens Preparedness Corp)- which operates under the Department of Homeland Security and is attached to the Governor’s office.

It was created after Super Storm Sandy, which hit the east coast of New York State very hard.

“There weren’t enough first responders for every family, so some families waited days for help!”

“One of the families I was working with was a single mother with four kids. She lost everything in that hurricane!”

“There are 14 teams spread across the state and our team in No. 6- and from the Capital District. We cover your county. We cover about 14 counties, including Franklin, Essex, Warren, etc.”

He asked the audience to give examples of natural disasters in this area and the answers were: ice storms, floods, earth quakes.

A particular and troubling things about earth quakes is that if they are not rated as 5.1 “your area is not qualified for federal assistance.”

“So I always tell the press, if you are in there covering it, round up the number to 5.1 or more to help your town.” Lots of laughter. “What? Only 4.9...it’s got to be more than that!” he joked of what a media member should say.

How about human-caused disasters? One is 9-11. Another is a preventable fire, as are dam failures. Infrastructure failures is another, he said, remembering that catastrophic collapse of the condo complex in Florida a few years ago.

He said one of the issues there was the owners’ lateness on their safety inspections.

Bioharzards caused by things like train derailments which pour hazardous chemicals into communities is another man-made disaster.

Active shootings are another. He cited the recent Buffalo shootings in a black neighborhood as a recent one.

Another human-caused disasters are cyber-attacks. Sgt. Esmel said in a state that loves to win prizes, this one ranks Number 3 when it comes to the cyber-attacks of seniors. Over $188 million in financial losses is recorded in attacks to older adults in this state, he told the group.

There are medical disasters, such as a pandemic or an epidemic. He said a pandemic, according to a world health organization, is a much broader disaster. Any disease that grows exponentially out of control across the globe is a pandemic, whereas one that is only nationwide is considered an epidemic and determined by the nation’s Center for Disease Control.

A Lyme Disease outbreak some years ago in America was an example of an epidemic. COVID, which was worldwide, is an example of a pandemic, he told the crowd.

“During emergency disasters, resources are available to help communities. Advanced planning can prevent disasters. Plans how to shelter in place and plans how to emergency evacuate, are two examples of needed planning.

“Timing is super important. The Buffalo snow storm, is a good example. There were so many residents who lived their entire lives there, got stuck in that storm. Some people got lost in the storm in their neighborhoods. Many people got out of their vehicles, couldn’t see their hand in front of their face in the severe storm, and couldn’t tell left from right or couldn’t see or recognize otherwise familiar landmarks.

He directed the audience to a section in the emergency information handbook handed out that evening and to a section on developing a family disaster work plan where information on family members, their relationships to each other, their birth dates and social security number. There was space too for details on pets, their breeds, their veterinarians and medications. The aim is to alert first responders who might respond to a family’s house in an emergency.

Included in the plan should be a drawing of the home’s floor plan. Information about a family’s key contacts- both local and distant, the names of the nearest relative and family work numbers. Phone number for schools family members attend and places where parents work- plus other important family contacts like physicians, pharmacists, insurance companies, fire, police and 911 agencies.

The plan is important, he said, to the safety and security of every family member and pet. “Practicing the plan” is critical to often surviving all kinds of disasters.

Being prepared takes four simple steps, Sgt. Esmel related: develop an emergency plan, build emergency kits with food for at least seven to ten days and emergency tools; Be Aware, for example, sign up for NY-ALERT to receive emergency notifications and Get Involved by donating some time to your community to learn what organizations exist and what they do.

Food in each emergency kit should include energy bars, ready to each canned foods, non-perishable food, manual can opener, disposable utensils, plates and cups.

Each emergency kit should include a gallon of water per day per person. Plan for between seven and ten days.

Restock the food goods and water every year, so products have not expired.

Each emergency kit should also contain personal hygiene supplies like tooth brushes and toothpaste, feminine hygiene products, baby wipes, eye care products, a ten-day prescription supply, travel-size soaps, shampoo, deodorant and a towel and wash cloths.

That section of the book also contained a list of emergency supplies: a backpack to be used for evacuations, gauze and band aids and rolls of medical tape, antiseptic wipes, bottle of saline, medical gloves, whistle, work gloves, eye goggles, emergency blanket, batteries, dust masks, sanitation wipes, manual can opener, flashlight, multi-tool with pliers, cell phone charger, LED light and flash light, crank-operated emergency radio, reflective vest and sleeping bag.

Copies of vital family documents like bank accounts, birth and marriage certificates, immunization records, credit card information, insurance policies, wills, passports, deeds, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, etc. Special consideration should also be given to the needs of infants, children, elderly and pets. The document holder should be waterproof, and also include cash and local maps. Also in the waterproof container should be pens, pencils, markers and paper.

Family members should also be aware of a pre-determined meeting place in the home during a a disaster, as well as an out of the home place, best out of the neighborhood.

People should also be very familiar with their insurance coverage before a disaster strikes. Know what will be covered and what won’t be. For example most homeowners’ and renters’ policies don’t cover flood damage. An inventory of property and all valuables is also important to include in a document container for the best settlement of insurance claims after disasters.

For the actual evacuation, families should have smaller “Go Bags”- lightweight and smaller versions of the household emergency supply kits. There should be one small kit per household member.

Where to go in a disaster should also be practiced.

He also advised families to supply their individually-designed disaster plans with some friend or family members out of state or far from the place of residence who wouldn’t be affected by that particular disaster.

Those out of town contacts could furnish key information to first responders and other emergency personnel for the family caught in the local disaster.

Ironically, a fire alarm sounded in the building about 20 minutes into the presentation.

In any disaster, pets should not be left behind. Families also should prepare pet kits made up of pet food, manual can opener, bottled water, food and water dishes, pet hygiene supplies, ten days of medicines, cat little and pan, leash and crate, medical records and name of vet.

Every home should be prepared for a disaster in advance. There should be abundant fire alarms, as fire presents the greatest safety threat in this nation. There should be a smoke alarm in each sleeping bedroom and outside of each and at least one in other living space on each level, including basements and attics. Test fire alarms regularly and check older battery-powered alarms each year at daylight savings time. Use 10-year, no tamper fire alarm from now on. Have fire extinguishers present to combat fires rated A, B and C. Everyone in the family should be trained to use each of them. There should be carbon monoxide detectors in every house, as CO is “the silent killer.” Residents should know where utility shut-offs are located.

More tips from the recent presentation in an upcoming issue soon.