Relationships are key--before the disaster

Neil Clement who was a County Emergency Manager at the time of this incident sent me the following narrative that is a wonderful example of having relationships in place before an event happens.  The Whatcom Creek Pipeline Explosion was a horrific localized disaster that could have been much much worse.   He was responding to another blog posting, but I figured that his example was too good to bury as a comment to a blog post.

 

"On June 10, 1999 a quarter of a million gallons of gas leaked from a pipeline into Bellingham’s Whatcom Creek.  Two kids and a young man were killed when the gas ignited sending a mile-and-a-half fireball through the heart of town during the 5 o’clock rush hour.  The EOC was activated for the next 21-days.  The first 24-hours were pretty hectic.  Around 3 o’clock in the morning I was sitting in my office with the Sheriff when a man stuck his head around the door and said “Hi Neil.”  I said “Hi Thor, it’s nice to see you here.”  He replied that he’d opened up the OPA fund and that he’d be back to talk again later.  When he was gone, the Sheriff looked at me with a perplexed look and said “who was that?”  I explained that Thor was the Federal On-Scene Coordinator with the EPA and he just opened up a multi-million dollar pot of money that was available if we needed it.  The Sheriff said “how do you know him?” To which I replied “that’s my job boss, we’ve planned, trained and exercised together.”  Three o’clock in the morning was not the time to get to know one-another…or as Snoopy once said “five minutes before the party is not the time to learn to dance.”

Neil Clement