Emergency Operations Plan Approved

By Chris Frost
EAGLE TIMES NEWS EDITOR
CLAREMONT, N.H. — The Claremont City Council unanimously approved an Emergency Operations Plan during its Wednesday meeting.

The plan, focuses on prevention, mitigation, preparation and recovery and will prompt decisions during future emergencies.

Fire Chief Jim Chamberlain said the plan, initially expected in 2020, was pushed back because of challenges.

“It’s important to highlight that we had recent events which resulted in officials implementing various sections of our current EOP,” he said. “The first was the flooding event in early/mid-July. The police chief and I collaborated and implemented the Emergency Operations Center out of the police department and we allocated our resources from that department.”

Chamberlain said they worked with Public Works Director Nick Lawrence to open the Community Center and have its bus on standby.

“That emergency was primarily in the Citizen Street/Beauregard Village area,” he said. “Simultaneously, during the event, we initiated a separate EOP, or mitigation effort at Sweetwater Dam, located on Plains Road. We had growing concerns with the amount of water we were taking in and the dam’s capability to sustain its functionality.” 

After the flooding, he said a comprehensive after-action report was created by Police Chief Brent Wilmot.

“I work closely with the DPW directors to submit our associated costs through the state Web EOC (Emergency Operations Center), should a disaster be called from the governor, which we have not heard yet,” Chamberlain said. “The second event was the fire we had on Sullivan Street on August 5. This also resulted in an after-action report I created, which captured lessons learned, identified areas of improvement and acknowledged the successful aspects of our personnel.”   

June Garneau of Mapping and Planning Solutions, the firm hired by the city to help develop the plan, which has largely been funded by a grant from the state, explained how things came together.

“The process involved six meetings where we held meetings for two hours and had different departments come to offer input into the EOP process,” she said. “We covered an area of the plan we call our base plan and then we went into our emergency support functions.”

She said the emergency support functions are items getting activated during an emergency. She likened it to “candy in a toolbox.” 

“The EMD (emergency management director) or fire chief does not have to activate all those emergency support functions, only those needed for a specific emergency,” she said. “Once we completed all the meetings, my company prepares a draft copy, which goes back to the department heads for their review and comments.”

The company makes final edits based on department input and sends the final copy for adoption.

“Once the plan is adopted, we print the final copy and send two copies to the city,” she said. “One will be for the EMD and will not be redacted. The second copy is for the city and they’ll be able to put that where they wish, but that will be redacted so personal phone numbers will not show in the redacted plan.”