Emergency preparedness was the topic of discussion at Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center’s Adult Speaker Series Thursday, Nov. 21.

Mount Vernon-Lisbon Police Chief Doug Shannon, Mount Vernon Fire Chief Nathan Goodlove and Lisbon-Mount Vernon Ambulance Service director Jacob Lindauer all presented the ways their training and working together helps keep these communities safe and lessons they learned.

Shannon said that when it comes to disaster preparedness, what citizens need to keep in mind is that the goal is when a disaster hits, that citizens can be self-sufficient for 72 hours.

“We know one of the lessons we learned in the derecho is when communications went down for citizens, they went down for staff as well,” Shannon said. “That was one of the things we worked on following that derecho as a lesson learned was building redundancy in emergency communications.”

In the case of an emergency Goodlove said it is advised to keep at least a gallon of water per person per day available.

“The one thing we can say in the floods of 2008 and the derecho is our area had no fatalities,” Goodlove said. “A lot of that has to do with the Midwest Nice nature, and neighbors taking care of each other in the case of emergencies.”

Lindauer said that one of the lessons learned in the derecho was the importance of having data on people who may be on concentrated oxygen or other aids impacted by power outages.

“Linn County Public Health had that data, but we needed to have signatures in place to get access to that data, which was made harder without having access to a fax machine,” Lindauer said. “We were able to send crews to check on those addresses and either ourselves, their families or neighbors got them to alternative addresses to get the resources they needed.”

Shannon said one thing Mount Vernon and Lisbon should know they are lucky about is the level of responders that we have in the area.

“We have two great fire departments, a full-time police department and an outstanding EMS service,” Shannon said. “We all work together as departments on reporting what went well, what we learned from here, and how we can make sure we respond better in the next time.”

Lindauer said due to the geography of where Mount Vernon and Lisbon are working, his organizations works with responders from multiple counties —Johnson, Cedar, Jones and Linn — and getting them all on the same radio frequency or channel can be a challenge in an emergency.

Goodlove said there is work to get to a more uniform state system, but doubts that will be a reality anytime soon.

“What’s more likely to happen is for a regional dispatch to be established for our county area instead,” Goodlove said.

Goodlove said it would be great if there were more dedicated dispatchers knowledgeable for fire or EMS, as many dispatchers are good for law enforcement calls.

“I know they are constantly struggling to find dispatch operators, however,” Goodlove said.

Shannon said 90 percent of the issues with tiered responses is working through communications breaking down or not working, despite training and exercises conducted.

Lindauer said that all these local departments having great working relationships is a huge deal.

“I can speak from experience that you don’t always find great relationships like this between multiple departments,” Lindauer said.

One of the big improvements all three noted was the installation of a generator at the LBC.

“To have that support from our community members and council that this is a priority is huge,” Goodlove said. “It’s a significant investment in these buildings, but allows them to do so much for people in case of emergencies, be that charging medical devices or having a shelter.”

All three agencies said that recruiting has been it’s own kind of challenge.

At the fire department, Goodlove said that work was done to bring on younger members over the past several years.

“We found that we had several members who were older and needed to do some succession planning and targeted recruitment for younger members,” Goodlove said. “We did that with recruiting Cornell students and starting a cadets program.”

Shannon said that for the police department, hiring a brand new officer and their training comes at a $35,000 price tag. It’s why allowing people to sign up for the officer reserves is beneficial, as it gives them enough training to learn more about the career before joining the force.

Lindauer said recruiting was one of his first tasks as a director.

“I know those first few months, it was just me and possibly a volunteer like Jim Wallace responding to medical calls,” Lindauer said. “We utilized fire department and police help on some of those calls.”

Lindauer said he took a different approach, and helped to create an environment where volunteers have the opportunity to learn and expand their knowledge and improve themselves.

“While 50 percent of our crew is community based, I still have people from Cornell, Coe, University of Iowa who come to this service to get experiences they don’t get in other services,” Lindauer said.

Training a paramedic is a $20,000 to $25,000 investment, whereas an EMT or Advanced EMT is a $2,000 to $2,500 investment, but the service needs all tiers of responders to house coverage.

The biggest hurdle for EMS is trying to shift people from the mindset that every call for service needs to be transferred to a hospital, that sometimes just medical professionals treating what they encounter in the field is enough.

Shannon said one of the biggest accomplishments during his tenure as chief was bringing together Mount Vernon and Lisbon’s police departments to provide 24/7 coverage for the two communities.

“It was hard for these two departments to provide that coverage on their own, but with the merge, it’s allowed us to better use community resources and service,” Shannon said.

Goodlove said that for the fire department, the biggest challenge is keeping firefighters in the necessary gear that the department can afford for them. A goal he has for the next 10 to 20 years is to get sleeping quarters at the department, so those on call in the evening hours can respond to calls even faster.

“Most fires today involve items that are made from plastic or synthetics, which are toxic when they burn and they burn hot,” Goodlove said. “The lag time we have to most responses is three to seven minutes just to get to the fire department, and then respond to scene. In that time, fires are developing stronger.”

Goodlove recommended smoke alarms in every bedroom and one on each floor. He also recommended people have carbon monoxide detectors on every floor. In rural homes, he recommended propane detectors as well. Fire extinguishers kept in a location away from sources of heat, but readily accessible.