First responders, elected officials and emergency managers from Long Island and New York City spent Hurricane Week learning from last year’s mistakes at the Annual Emergency Management conference.
The theme of the event, which ran Wednesday and Thursday at the Long Island Marriot in Uniondale, was “Learning from the Past –Planning for the Future”
“I think disaster really identifies what works and what doesn’t in a situation,” said Karl Kim, a professor from the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center at University of Hawaii.
Last year, the United States sustained $58 billion worth of weather related damages, he said.
Long Island just missed a disastrous situation last August with Tropical Storm Irene. The storm was a Category 3 at its strongest, but downgraded to a tropical storm before it made landfall in New York.
Despite the loss of strength, Irene still flooded shorefront areas and left streets and roads blocked by down trees and power lines. It also caused damages along the Eastern seaboard that came out to around $7 billion, making Irene one of the costliest storms in U.S. history.
About half of the Long Island Power Authority’s 1.1 million customers lost electricity, and the utility faced harsh criticism after some remained in the dark for more than a week after Irene hit. This year’s conference discussed ways to better prepare so that it wouldn’t happen again.
The conference also looked at other potential disasters, including terrorist attacks, earthquakes and winter storms.
Jerome Hauer, Commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, spoke about the recent funding cuts for New York from the Department of Homeland Security, and how he couldn’t understand how they came to that decision.
“For the life of me, I can’t figure out why DHS doesn’t see that New York has the biggest threat in the country.”
He added that he wasn’t just speaking about New York City, and that areas like LI are equally at risk for a disaster.
“Everyone of you in the room is going to be impacted.”
Regardless of what the disaster is, the main conclusion was the same: citizen preparedness.
“A big concern is making sure citizens are prepared, so they can rescue themselves, then rescue their neighbors,” Hauer said.
Anthony Brown of the Suffolk County Emergency Response Team (CERT) agreed. He pointed out that if a catastrophic event occurs citizens can only expect 20 percent of emergency responders to come out, as they have to care for themselves and their own families, and many times are just physically unable to get into certain areas.
“You have to expect the worst that can happen,” Brown said. “You need to be prepared to have no power for two weeks, have a two-week supply of food and a 30-day supply of any prescription medications you or your family members take.”
Hurricane season officially starts June 1 and ends Nov. 30. The peak of the season runs from August until October. Last week the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the East Coast is forecast to have about four to eight hurricanes this summer, which is considered near-normal.