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Fire chief assists with Irene emergency efforts
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Boardman Fire Chief George Brown, shown here pointing to a water mark in a Windham, N.Y., fire station, returned to Boardman on Friday. He was helping emergency efforts in response to Hurricane and Tropical Storm Irene in Suffolk and Green counties.
BOARDMAN
The township’s fire chief says he learned many lessons while organizing emergency efforts in response to Irene, which impacted the East Coast both as a hurricane and a tropical storm.
Chief George Brown was deployed to Suffolk and Green counties in New York on Aug. 28 and returned Friday. Suffolk County contains the Hamptons and Long Island, but Brown spent most of his time in the small town of Windham in Green County.
Brown was deployed through an Ohio Incident Management Team and was the only Mahoning Valley representative on that team.
He was in charge of logistics and organized food-distribution centers, volunteers and the emergency operation center.
At first, some Windham residents hesitated to ask for help, he recalled.
“They never had to ask for anything [before]. They were very proud people,” Brown said.
“They were just in a daze. They ran up against a wall and realized they didn’t have anything and they needed help.”
Brown said emergency situations such as Irene affect local safety personal in the same ways as the people they serve.
Three firefighters lost their houses, another firefighter’s mother died, and the wife of a 50-year department member was killed in the floods in one volunteer fire department near Windham, Brown said.
“They were exhausted and tired and looking for help,” he said.
“We bolstered them so they knew they were doing a good job. ... The hardest thing is getting them back to [normal]. ... If we stay, we become the crutch.”
Brown said the team worked with residents to make the response effort sustainable.
“We don’t come in with an attitude ‘We’re here to take over,’” he said.
“We come in with the attitude that we’re here to make things better.
“We work with local people, we don’t push them out. We fill in the gaps where they need us,” Brown added.
Trustee Chairman Thomas Costello said all of Brown’s expenses, including salary, benefits and travel costs, are reimbursed to the township by Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We actually see it as a benefit to the township with the contacts he makes and the information he brings back to us,” Costello said.
Township Administrator Jason Loree said Boardman does have a disaster plan, “but it’s dated.”
Brown said he is reviewing the township’s disaster plan and agreements with county, state and federal agencies that would be needed in an emergency.