Officials participate in crisis training led by international experts

On a hot July day a spark ignites spreading into a wildfire threatening the city. Hundreds of protesters gather downtown, but the event morphs into a violent riot. How will officials respond to these potential incidents and others that could occur, and how will they ensure the safety and wellbeing of residents during and following such a crisis?

A team of experts from Rutgers University last week held a two-day training session here to assist in educating municipal and Flathead County officials in the fundamentals of preparedness and crisis leadership, while setting them on a path to shoring up or creating new plans that would assist in handling crisises in the future.

John Farmer, the former New Jersey Attorney General and senior law enforcement authority during and after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, opened the training by sharing his experience as being in charge of New Jersey in the days surrounding the attacks and the lessons learned in the years since.

“It was a nightmare from a leader’s perspective,” Farmer said.

He noted that while officials had emergency plans ahead of time, those plans proved to be ineffective on the day for a number of reasons. He noted that communications were disabled and it quickly became impossible to “identify the chain of command that day.”

“Everything was improvised,” he said.

The deaths of hundreds of first responders resulted because they didn’t get the notice to evacuate — they had self-reported to the site to assist, but did not have radios — from the World Trade Center towers before they collapsed, he added.

Farmer quickly found out that being in charge “by virtue” of his office as New Jersey’s Attorney General didn’t mean he was prepared or trained to make the decisions that became necessary. Later as General Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, he made it his mission to investigate the response to the attacks in further depth including the response by the federal government.

“When you lose that many people, it lights a fire in you,” he said. “I had to find out my role and who was doing what that day.”

A group of experts led the Leading Through Crisis workshop last week here working with Whitefish elected officials, city department heads, police officers and firefighters. The training is designed to provide leadership skills and strategies for how to plan for, respond to and recover from both man-made and natural disasters. Also participating in the exercise were representatives from North Valley Hospital, BNSF, local businesses, Columbia Falls, Flathead County, other emergency managers and members of area law enforcement and fire agencies.

Whitefish City Manager Adam Hammatt said those who gathered representing area agencies at Whitefish City Hall are at the top of their field and would benefit from the international experts leading the training.

“We are seeing increasing numbers of natural disasters and civil unrest at unprecedented levels,” he said. “Communities must be more vigilant and consistent in their preparation. The more prepared we are and ready to call on each other when we need the better we are going to be.”

Hammatt said the hope is that discussions, which began during the workshop will continue in the coming months.

The Leading Through Crisis training comes out of Rutgers University Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience and was developed exclusively for elected and appointed government officials.

Paul Goldenberg, senior fellow at Rutgers University and current member of U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council, said the gathering of so many agency representatives in one room is a positive.

“You’re looking at how do we support each other because it’s not if, it’s when the next crisis comes to town,” he said.

Two years ago Whitefish weathered a neo-Nazi online troll storm that threated residents and business owners, following an argument between a real estate agent and the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer. A group of new-Nazis also announced plans for a march through town, but that never materialized.

The workshop included lessons learned from recent disasters along with expert instruction in leader preparedness, decision-making, planning and crisis communication. The second day of the training involved officials running through a table top exercise that asked them to verbally work through how they would respond to a manufactured crisis scenario designed to identify the gaps and strengths in current disaster plans.

Following the training, Deputy Mayor Richard Hildner said the exercises were valuable for Whitefish to prepare in case of an eventual emergency.

“All cities need to be prepared for a crisis of some kind that visits their community, whether it’s a hurricane like in the Southeast or forest fires in the West,” he said.

Hildner said the table top exercise specifically allowed city staff to identified areas that need to be improved in its planning procedures for crisis situations. Specifically areas where Whitefish needs to form better relationships with area agencies and partners that the city would likely work with or call upon for support in a crisis situation.

“I learned that Whitefish is already doing an excellent job,” he said. “It highlighted areas where we can do better and now we can take action on those.”

During the training, Jeffrey Slotnick, a security risk consultant with Setracon Enterprise Security Risk Management, told leaders that the decisions they make during a crisis are “high impact” that could save or cost lives and property, and have economic impacts.

“This is a tremendous burden to be carrying,” he said.

Slotnick reminded those gathered that creating emergency plans and then testing those plans through exercises, along with forming solid relationships with related agencies, is important.

“We don’t get to choose when a crisis happens,” he said. “You can’t afford to wait until a disaster happens and then make relationships. A crisis can quickly overwhelm your staff and that’s when you need mutual aide agreements — and many cities, counties and states have those — but you need to make sure that those are not just on paper.”

For more information on Leading Through Crisis, visit http://www.ltctraining.us/.