Imagine this: a tornado is forecasted to hit the tri-state area. The path of the storm and potential for severe damage have been determined. Ridgefield will be hit hard. Is our town ready?
Town department heads, emergency management personnel, school officials, including Superintendent of Schools Karen Baldwin and St. Mary School principal, Anna O’Rourke, together with specially trained Emergency Operations Center (EOC) volunteers, gathered in the EOC today for the third annual Emergency Planning and Preparedness Initiative (EPPI). The initiate is a table-top drill that simulates response to a large-scale, natural or man-made disaster.
This two-day statewide emergency preparedness drill is designed to enhance readiness and disaster planning at all levels of government, with an emphasis on school emergency preparedness and response.
“These types of drills have helped us to improve our overall response and we take them very seriously,” said First Selectman, Rudy Marconi.
From communicating messages to State officials and local residents, providing shelter to those displaced due to the disaster, working with the Red Cross, Eversource, and emergency personnel, the team of more than 40 people, simulated a solid response to a natural disaster.
Churches and local organizations such as The Boys and Girls Club have agreed to let the Town of Ridgefield utilize their facility for anything that may be needed. All Ridgefield schools, including Ridgefield Academy and St. Mary are in communication and collaboration with the Town. Local specialists in many essential areas including: human and animal sheltering, emergency management administrative support, health emergency response, firefighter rehabilitation, preliminary damage assessment and public affairs, are all doing their part to keep residents safe.
Working as a unit, the drill has put each town constituent to the test - do they know what to do to help Ridgefield climb out of the wreckage? Will they act appropriately and collectively in the aftermath of the storm. The answer is yes.
“We’re prepared to go the distance,” said Marconi. “We have to operate as if we are our own island...we can’t rely on the State or Federal Government,” he added.