Update To RIOC's Roosevelt Island Hurricane Irene Briefing - Designated Evacuation Center In LIC Is Safe and Clean, Need To Prepare and Plan For Next Emergency Says RIRA Plannng Chair/Cert Team Member Frank Farance

Image of 9/1 RIOC Hurricane Irene Briefing Board From Frank Farance

As reported in this prior post, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) held two post Hurricane Irene briefings last Friday, one for RIOC Directors and several Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) members in the morning and another briefing immediately thereafter for the Roosevelt Island media. RIRA Planning Committee Chair Frank Farance attended the first briefing and sends the following report (RIRA President Matt Katz and RIHS President Judy Berdy also attending this briefing and shared their comments here).

Image of 9/1 RIOC Hurricane Irene Briefing at Lighthouse Park From Frank Farance

From Mr. Farance:

I've put my most important point first: it is really important for Roosevelt Island residents to know that our designated evacuation shelter at Newcomers HS in Long Island City is a CLEAN/SAFE facility. Gwen Ryals and I, as CERT members, were helping staff the shelter.

 

Image Of Frank & Gwen during Lunch Break at Evacuation Center From Frank Farance

It's geared for families, children, seniors, and mobility impaired. They even have a tea set and toys in a children's area to make it hospitable.

 

 Image of Children's Evacuation Area at Facility From Frank Farance

The food was OK, we can live on school cafeteria food for a couple days.

 

 Image From Frank Farance

Image From Frank Farance

Mr. Farance noted that one school cafeteria was used for eating and another cafeteria was a sleeping area. The Gym was used for one of the sleeping areas and a family sleeping area was off camera to left.

Mr. Farance continues:

Back to the RIOC presentation ...

Matt Katz, Howard Polivy, and I have been the three residents over the long term to follow RIOC on emergency planning. We've changed hats a couple times, but I think the three of us have been on the same page for a very long while (2005, before CERT?) on this. Over time, we've learned some things from RIOC, PSD, OEM, SEMO, and the managing agents.

At Friday's meeting at Lighthouse, Mr. Katz reminded RIOC that they used to convene quarterly meetings with representatives from all the managing agents, RIOC, and Island institutions to discussed emergency planning. The meetings became less frequent, now they are non-existent. We really need to get back to having this forum on a regular basis.

Here's a brief history:

- In the blackout of 2003, there were a good number of mobility-impaired people who needed help. The Roosevelt Island Search And Rescue (RISAR) came about to address these and similar needs not handled by RIOC, PSD, or EMS. Since then, the managing agents have done a better job of tracking their individual tenant's needs.

- In summer of 2005, OEM came to Roosevelt Island to socialize the city-wide plan for Ready New York. OEM asked residents What Is Your Plan? OEM was surprised that the meeting devolved into the residents turning the tables and asking OEM: What's ***Your*** Plan?

- In 2006, resident volunteers formed the RI CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). Approximately 30 residents were trained over 6 months. We participated in drills through late 2007.

- We learned from RIOC and through our CERT training that NYC OEM is the key coordination point: only the Mayor or the Governor can order an evacuation. In other words, RIOC only has scope to manage/plan certain things: street lights and security for power outage, shoveling for snow, and other small scope issues.

- Like all emergency responders, RIOC has plans and did execute plans for its Incident Comment system (CERT and OEM use similar language and structure).

- Over time, this hole (How To Evacuate Roosevelt Island On Short Notice) in planning has never been resolved. The residents on the RI CERT are aware of this, RIOC is aware of this but defers to OEM, and this is low priority for OEM. Assemblymember Kellner's letter can help, but we need to coordinate this with Roosevelt Island expertise (RIOC, PSD, RI CERT, institutions, managing agents, merchants, etc.).

- Some of the big holes in planning an evacuation include: how to manage traffic flow. In the past year, NYC DOT added these really unhelpful white plastic cones on the RI bridge. If we need to evacuate, they need to be removed immediately so we have a full three lanes of traffic on the bridge (incoming, emergency, outgoing - just like City Island). We need to ***DRILL*** this kind of traffic coordination problem. If you've seen the traffic flow on July 4th events on Roosevelt Island, it's a multiple hour big-mess (understatement). Hospital shift changes are problematic, too. This is just moving a couple thousand people. Now add the emergency vehicles and people bringing cars to load and evacuate -- a much bigger problem.

- Hurricanes aren't easy to predict, so evacuation either comes very early (but useless and disruptive) or late. I've tracked weather on Roosevelt Island for 30+ years and Hurricane Irene was *atypical* in that its storm track 3-4 days in advance varied very little (from Coney Island to Levittown) over the prediction period. So the successes we had on Irene, might not occur on other hurricanes. The hurricane on Labor Day weekend of 2008 comes to mind (Hurrican Hanna?) where it unexpectedly gained speed up the East Cost and arrived sooner than expected: Virginia at 04:00 Saturday morning, NYC around 09:00 that same morning.

- Without DRILLING this evacuation exercise, we have no idea how long it will take and people might die in a real emergency. I can't predict where the glitches will be, but a DRILL helps discover them.

- Many people want an evacuation shelter on RI. As Mr. Chironis pointed out, if you are evacuating from something, you need to go to a BETTER zone than the one you are already at. So PS/IS 217, Sportspark, and The Child School would all be undesirable for those reasons. Yes, it is possible for people on high floors (above 10th) to evacuate, even though the rest of the Island does not. It might be easier to take people to Newcomers HS (a clean/safe facility in Long Island City).

On Friday, RIOC made a presentation on Hurricane Irene After-Action Review. It was attended by a dozen or so RIOC staff, Mr. Martinez led the presentation. Mr. Matt Katz asked about evacuations, Mr. Robert Atterbury of Assemblymember Kellner's office chimed in. Dr. Ferrera, head of The Child School, had graciously offered his space.

I think RIOC and PSD did a great job. The guys clearing the storm drains the days before are geniuses. I was back and forth from the Newcomers HS emergency shelter several times throughout the 48 hours of the storm and from what I saw, things were going OK on the Island.

I've heard some grumbling that RIOC had a separate presentation for the media. The presentation I saw was, I think, just a dry run for the media and RIOC did well. I think RIOC did a pretty good job planning and executing their incident command center, which manages their activities. Mr. Martinez was well prepared.

I've heard some complain that RIOC President Leslie Torres was not on site during the storm. Ms. Torres is a parent with kids' school schedules, family vacations, and such. If the corporation thought Mr. Martinez (RIOC VP of Operations) could handle it, then I think he was the right person to do so. Ms. Torres wouldn't have added any significant help. Everyone that needed to participate was directly under Mr. Martinez' command. This is a different situation than the City where Bloomberg was necessary to coordinate.

Many of us have heard the complaint that RIOC has no evacuation plan. This isn't within RIOC's scope. We need someone at OEM to initiate this planning and they need to contact local experts (RIOC, PSD, RI CERT, managing agents, hospitals, merchants) to help plan this properly. At the Lighthouse meeting, several people noted that Gristedes and M&D Deli should be thanked for providing extra service to residents before and during the storm <-- I agree, they should be thanked.

Some people asked about the phone lines and the loss of PSD's phone service. I spoke to Mr. Mike Moreo about this and how to do this better next time. I'm not blaming RIOC because we've all been told this: cooper phone lines do better. True in most cases, except this one where flooding in the 53rd street tunnel shorted out many phone lines for Islanders.

At the Lighthouse, this led to a secondary topic: how to coordinate among residents with these kind of communication problems. The buildings built to State codes don't require annunciator systems, so there is now PA system to tell people what to do. This is a topic of discussion in the quarterly meetings Mr. Katz had suggested.

I added links to the Kellner letter and OEM Roosevelt Island presentation mentioned in Mr. Farance's report.

The NY Times reported on lessons learned by New York City from Hurricane Irene for future emergencies:

Changes both large and small will be made to the way New York City responds to hurricane emergencies in the future, including how evacuations will be publicized and executed, after officials learned valuable lessons from the unprecedented emptying of the waterfront as Tropical Storm Irene bore down on the five boroughs....

During the Roosevelt Island Hurricane Irene media briefing, I asked RIOC Vice President of Operations Fernando Martinez what lessons RIOC learned from Hurricane Irene for future Roosevelt Island emergencies. Mr. Martinez replied that there were many. When asked for some specifics he said that a simple example of a lesson learned involved the proper type of chain saw to be purchased for removing downed and damaged tree. When asked for another example he said that would be for another day. The video of this exchange is here at the approximate 26 minute mark.