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Emergency Services
Disaster Planning
- Emergency service providers and trainers are faced with increasing demands for response and preparedness training. The importance and scope of disaster planning has changed dramatically since the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01. There are new federal Department of Homeland Security programs and requirements and new concerns over national security. The county must now plan on a larger multi-county and multi-state regional scale. This requires more time to coordinate with a wide variety of agencies. The county must be prepared to evacuate county residents, workers, and large facilities, such as hospitals, nursing homes, and the county prison in emergencies. The county must also be prepared to accommodate people who are evacuated from surrounding areas in temporary shelters in Chester County.
- There are new threats of biological incidents, such as an avian flu outbreak or an anthrax release, which the county must be prepared for. Incidents may require that mass clinics be set up to inoculate or treat the public in a short amount of time. Such an event could be the joint responsibility of the Department of Emergency Services and Health Department. There could be a need for thousands of volunteers for a single incident. Plans must identify distribution or treatment points, such as large high schools, with facilities, access, and parking for large numbers of people. The scope of these threats requires extensive training and simulated drills to be prepared for an actual event.
- The Federal Emergency Management Agency requires the county to have “Continuity of Operations” plans (COOP) in the event of a power outage at the EMS center. The Department of Emergency Services must be prepared with back-up plans and equipment to keep the 911 communications center and other emergency facilities operational during emergencies.
Equipment/Technology and Training
- Cellular telephones, while useful for reporting emergencies, have been difficult for 911 system operators to locate. New technology has become necessary to properly respond to emergency calls. Land line telephone calls can be tied to an address, but cell phones cannot. Travelers often do not know where they are or even which municipality they are in. New technology using Global Positioning System helps emergency responders to locate cell phone calls. Sometimes the call center can determine the approximate location of the caller, but in other cases only the location of the nearest cell tower is received by the telecommunicator.
- New emergency equipment is very complex and requires sophisticated training. New federal programs have helped to fund new technology, but it may not be available for equipment maintenance and updating. Computers and safety equipment, such as protective suits for hazardous or biological threats, are aiding the work of police and other emergency service workers. Volunteers must dedicate many hours to training. The training is complicated and involves greater numbers of participants.
Emergency Response
- Increased flooding puts greater demands on emergency responders. The county Department of Emergency Services is experiencing a higher percentage of water-related emergencies and flooding is occurring in areas that never flooded in the past. Roads must be closed. People need to be rescued and evacuated. Some of these areas are flooding due to impervious surfaces and are not in an actual floodplain. Those areas and residents may not be covered by flood insurance.
- The volunteer core for emergency services is shrinking. New residents often come from more densely developed areas and they have higher expectations and less interest in volunteering. Some municipalities need to hire paid staff, especially during the daytime, when residents are away from home at distant jobs. This can create conflicts with long-time volunteers, who are assigned to the same tasks.
- Response time to emergencies is increasing due to congested highways and distance. Volunteers have trouble getting to stations and emergency sites. The State Police cover large areas in the northwest and central portions of the county from the Embreeville Barracks in West Bradford and southern portions of the county from the Avondale Barracks in London Grove. The State Police also must provide part-time coverage to municipalities that are without 24 hour coverage.
- Access to trauma care is complicated because there is no trauma center located in Chester County. The existing trauma centers in nearby areas, such as Lancaster, Reading, Philadelphia, and Newark, Delaware, may adequately serve the county. However, this works only because of the availability of medical helicopters which can transport victims quickly over long distances. This transportation is very expensive and is often not covered or only partially covered by insurance.
Funding
- Fire and ambulance companies must depend on fund raising to operate and purchase new equipment. They compete for the same dollars in the local community. There may be overlap and duplication of equipment among nearby companies while other needs may go unmet because there is no coordination of resources.
- Municipal finance issues can impact police services. During years when municipalities have budget shortfalls, police departments are vulnerable to layoffs or cutbacks in coverage time. This can increase the responsibility of the State Police or require greater cooperation among local police departments. Although police services are generally well coordinated, the existence of many separate municipal police departments makes coordination difficult.
Education and Schools |Emergency Services | Human Services | Public Health | Other Services
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