The Western Piedmont Regional Emergency Management Task Force

By Chip Sturgis
Public Information Officer, Anderson County (S.C.)
Emergency Services-Public Safety Division

Read Part 2: Caring without borders

Courtesy photo South Carolina Area Map

The rugged foothills of the Western Piedmont are South Carolina’s most recently settled region. They're the traditional home of a hardy breed of do-it-yourself pioneers who left all they had in Germany and the British isles for the hope of a better life. This spirit has helped drive the local governments in this far western corner of the state to respond to 21st century-challenges in novel and creative ways.

Since its inception, the Western Piedmont Regional Emergency Management Task Force was destined to be different. Four mostly rural South Carolina counties, Abbeville, Anderson, Oconee and Pickens, learned that there’s power in cooperation and a greater sense of achievement when a coalition of counties can maximize each other’s strengths.

And that isn’t just our opinion. In 2006, for improving preparedness and response to all-hazards disasters, including major public assemblies, the task force received a Certificate of Merit in the annual Interagency Disaster Preparedness Awards, awarded by Homeland Protection Professional magazine and the International Association of Emergency Managers.

“Leaders of these four counties decided it would be better to share strengths and work together to overcome weaknesses in order to respond more effectively to a wide range of potential emergencies and disasters that could occur within the region,” said Anderson County administrator Joey R. Preston.

Also in 2006, the task force won the Barrett Lawrimore Memorial Regional Cooperation Award at the 39th annual conference of the South Carolina Association of Counties, for combining financial resources, training and equipment to save taxpayer dollars and enhance public safety.

“Each county’s emergency manager worked to create an ongoing relationship between and among the other counties to help ensure that when an emergency occurred, they responded as a team, not as individuals,” South Carolina Association of Counties president Waymon Mumford said in presenting the award.

“Sharing regional assets and skills,” Mumford added, “these cooperative efforts help each participating county bridge the gap between the need to have the response capability and the cost of providing that capability. By training together and building relationships, they have also reduced duplication of services and provided a foundation for future cooperative efforts.”

Interestingly, three years earlier, this same conference had provided the initial meeting for the task force’s creation.

Background

Courtesy photo Anderson County hazmat technicians deploying.

In 2003, the South Carolina State Homeland Security Assessment and Strategy outlined the framework for domestic preparedness to protect the state from threats originating at home or abroad. The state’s strategy incorporates the National Strategy for Homeland Defense, which relies on “a proactive emergency response community to extend the nation’s defenses.” As part of the 2003 Weapons of Mass Destruction exercise schedule, all four counties were brought together for joint planning and training.

During an awards competition at the 2003 South Carolina Association of Counties conference, Taylor Jones of Anderson County, Steve McDade of Abbeville County, Henry Gordon of Oconee County and Don Evett of Pickens County saw several individual county presentations. It was there that these county emergency managers realized that an individual county’s weakness could be compensated for by a neighbor’s strength.

Immediately after the competition, plans began to form to fill in the gaps or enhance one another’s capabilities and emergency preparedness efforts. These emergency leaders and county leaders came together to increase the strength and capabilities for all residents of the four-county bloc and extended neighbors as needed. And the Western Piedmont Regional Emergency Management Task Force was born.

Within its operational area, the task force serves more than 400,000 people in 2,348 square miles. The range of hazards in these four counties is wide. For example, Hartwell Lake covers nearly 56,000 acres and extends into Anderson, Oconee and Pickens counties. Part of the Savannah River Basin, it’s managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, which also operates the J. Strom Thurmond hydroelectric plant.

The region is also home to one of the most televised schools in the Southeast, Clemson University, which is located near the junction of Anderson, Oconee and Pickens counties. The City of Anderson Police Department has helped sweep the Littlejohn Stadium before basketball games and the famed “Death Valley” at Memorial Stadium prior to football games more than a dozen times to ensure fan safety.

Duke Energy, which provides the bulk of energy to this region, has a major nuclear power plant in Oconee County. All four counties are also part of the burgeoning I-85 corridor, which has become a major truck route for both hazardous and non-hazardous cargo between Atlanta and Charlotte and further on to the ports of Charleston, Savannah and Wilmington.

In this environment, years of close cooperation have honed the task force’s goals:

• To bridge each county’s shortcomings in preparedness by sharing regional assets.
• To increase response capabilities.
• To meet each county’s strategic goals.
• To reduce duplication of services.
• To better educate responders in-house at a reduced cost.
• To train and drill together for faster response times and increased efficiency.
• To build relationships and networks that cross county and other jurisdictional lines.

Funding

Courtesy photo Anderson County SWAT members staging near the Anderson Unified Mobile Command Center April 2008 hazmat/WMD evaluation exercise.

One way to flex collective muscle is when applying for grants and federal aid. By embracing the federal mantra of regionalism, the WPREMTF has been able to lobby for an increasing amount of federal dollars to enhance training and equipment. This success has improved the timeliness and quality of emergency response for all of the residents, guests and businesses in the region.

“If you look at homeland security strategies, both nationally and within the state,” says Steve McDade, director of Abbeville County’s Office of Emergency Management, “regionalization is a large initiative, so we’re working ahead of the curve.”

All of the counties also share teaching expertise and resources for courses ranging from emergency dispatch instruction to advanced level of the National Incident Management System. Many of the various emergency staff members are resident experts in a wide range of fields, which minimizes having to hire outside consultants or instructors, thus helping all of the counties save training dollars.

Capabilities

Combining assets through the task force has tremendously enhanced operational effectiveness in communications, emergency medical response and special technical operations through automatic mutual aid responses.

Each of the four counties has already established a Web Emergency Operation Center (WebEOC). Abbeville County has installed a new 911 center, and Anderson County has acquired a mobile command post. Oconee County has upgraded its dive team’s equipment. Pickens County has upgraded the equipment for its COBRA (Chemical Ordnance Biological Radiological) team.

After taking stock of their available resources, the task force counties realized that together they could surmount almost any hurdle and handle most emergencies.

Assets provided by the counties include:

Abbeville County
• EMT-P, EMT-I and EMT-B training
• Dispatch/911 training
• Local Emergency Preparedness Committees
• County Animal Response Team (for rescue of large farm animals)
• Dive team (with underwater communications system)
• Fire boat
• Confined-space rescue team
• WebEOC
• RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service)
• 800MHz communications

Anderson County
• Hazmat team
• Community Emergency Response Team
• Mobile Joint Information Center
• COBRA (Chemical Ordnance Biological Radiological) Team
• Mobile command post
• Local Emergency Preparedness Committees
• County fire department comprising 23 volunteer fire departments
• County Animal Response Team
• Helicopter
• Multi-disciplinary water craft
• Incident Management Team
• Web EOC
• RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service)
• 800MHz communication

Oconee County
• County fire department
• Wilderness search and rescue team
• High/low-angle rescue team
• Deepwater divers
• Swiftwater rescue team
• 3 swiftwater rafts
• Dive/rescue boat
• Submersible ROV (Remote Operating Vehicle)
• Underwater cameras
• Hazmat team
• Local Emergency Preparedness Committees
• Community Emergency Response Team
• County Animal Response Team
• Helicopter
• Confined-space rescue team
• Mobile command post
• RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service)
• WebEOC
• Emergency Response Team
• 800MHz communications

Pickens County
• Dive team
• Swiftwater rescue team
• County fire department
• Rescue boat with side scan sonar
• Submersible ROV (Remote Operating Vehicle)
• Deepwater divers
• WebEOC
• County Animal Response Team
• 800MHz communications

City of Anderson
• EOD team and bomb truck
• City fire department
• Anderson Search and Rescue (technical rescue) team

Federal and state agencies
• South Carolina National Guard
• South Carolina State Guard
• South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division
• South Carolina Emergency Management Division
• South Carolina Dept. of Health and Environmental Control (mobile surge hospital)
• South Carolina Dept. of Natural Resources
• South Carolina Forestry Commission
• South Carolina Highway Patrol
• FEMA
• 43rd Civil Support Team

Clemson University
• Fire/EMS and police departments

Tri-County Technical College, Pendleton (Anderson County)
• Support for WMD and weather disaster tabletop exercises