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In new role, Minnesota to aid other states: Officials to direct disaster response
Nov 20, 2009 (Pioneer Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake strikes the New Madrid seismic zone on the Kentucky-Missouri border. Communications go offline, highways are severely damaged, and there is not enough shelter space to house those displaced by the quake.
Whom, besides the federal government, are the affected states going to call for help? Beginning Dec. 1, some Minnesota officials will be taking their calls.
That's when Minnesota takes over as the national coordinating state for the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a partnership among all 50 states and four U.S. territories that assists in sharing state resources in response to disasters.
States have used the compact to respond to everything from hurricanes to the presidential inauguration and last spring's floods in the Red River Valley along the Minnesota-North Dakota border.
Minnesota was selected to lead the emergency compact because of its experience as a regional coordinator for federal disaster programs and because it frequently sends help to requesting states, said Kris Eide, a division director at the Minnesota Department of Public Safety who will serve as chair of the state directors.
Kim Ketterhagen, who will supervise operations as head of the group's Executive Task Force for the next 15 months, said Minnesota is among the top states in the country in terms of trained personnel, number of deployments and years in the program.
Ketterhagen is the state's emergency compact coordinator at the Department
of Public Safety.
The committee Eide will head is a collection of state coordinators from all 50 states. It will deal with policy issues, and the Executive Task Force will direct day-to-day and emergency operations.
To get assistance from the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, governors must first declare a state of emergency and request help from the compact. The coordinating state sends a team to the disaster area to assess needs and work with state and federal officials to get the proper response.
Generally, states are chosen to respond if they are geographically close to the disaster or if they specialize in efforts needed at the scene, Eide said.
"You really want the closest and most effective," she said.
When the disaster relief efforts are completed, the responding states are reimbursed from the requesting state's general fund or federal disaster recovery funds.
Carolyn Freitag, the North Carolina emergency compact coordinator and the current head of the Executive Task Force, was among a group of people meeting about the program with Minnesota officials Thursday in St. Paul.
Freitag emphasized the need for compact leaders and the states to communicate before disasters strike. In August, compact teams were in New England, ready to respond to Hurricane Bill had it become a major disaster, illustrating the type of proactive response Freitag stressed.
But, unlike hurricanes, some disasters can't be easily predicted, meaning Ketterhagen, Eide and their teams will be on-call to supervise emergency efforts that could consume days at a time.
"Disasters seem to happen at 4 o'clock on Friday afternoon on a holiday weekend," Freitag said.
Congress established the emergency compact in 1996, modeling it after a program that Southeastern states used to deal with hurricanes. After congressional approval, all 50 states passed laws to honor the compact. Minnesota passed its law in 1998, Ketterhagen said.
Though established by Congress, the program is completely state-run. It is funded primarily by federal grants through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Devin Henry can be reached at 651-265-2487.
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http://www.twincities.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
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