Roosevelt Island Emergency Management Preparedness Update/Lessons Learned Discussion At RIOC Operations Committee Meeting - More Community Involvement Planned, Communications Back Up and Seawall Needs To Be Fixed Too

Image of Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Park Flood From Hurricane Irene by Michael Girard

This previous post following Hurricane Irene reported on Roosevelt Island Assembly Member Micah Kellner's letter to Mayor Bloomberg seeking improvements in Roosevelt Island's emergency preparedness management. An excerpt from Mr. Kellner's letter:

... I am concerned about protecting and evacuating the residents of Roosevelt Island, which is located in my district.

Roosevelt Island requires special consideration when it comes to emergency planning; the Island is home to two acute-care hospitals, Coler and Goldwater, and nearly 14,000 residents, many of whom are elderly or disabled. Further, as the Island looks to expand with the possible location of an applied sciences center, with the accompanying residents and staff, it is more important than ever to focus on emergency procedures. Had the City faced a more severe storm that required the evacuation of Zone “B”, there is currently no practical plan in place to safely evacuate Island residents....

The subject of Roosevelt Island Emergency Preparedness was discussed during the September 28 Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) Operations Committee meeting (audio webcast of entire meeting is here).

RIOC Vice President of Operations Fernando Martinez provided an update/lessons learned to the RIOC Directors on Roosevelt Island emergency management preparedness and informed them that some staff have received more advanced emergency management training subsequent to Hurricane Irene. Mr. Martinez also reported that RIOC will start planning on improving  community involvement in Roosevelt Island Emergency Preparedness Management by involving the Roosevelt Island Communty Emergency Response Team (CERT), RIRA and other stakeholders in the emergency planning process.

When asked if the Roosevelt Island CERT Team was called into service during Hurricane Irene, Mr. Martinez said that it was not because the CERT Team comes under the jurisdiction of NYC Office Of Emergency Management (OEM) and was not activated by OEM during Hurricane Irene though several members assisted at the Long Island City Newcomers High School evacuation center.

One question that always arises regarding Roosevelt Island emergency preparedness is if there is an emergency evacuation plan and why does the community not know about it? RIOC Director Howard Polivy said that there was a plan, that he and RIRA President Matt Katz have reviewed it but that for security concerns, certain elements of the plan could not be made public. Mr. Polivy asked to the extent possible, the plan should be made more public and disseminated to the community.

RIOC Director Margie Smith wants to make sure that RIOC has a back up emergency communication system in place after the experience of Verizon phone service being down during the Hurricane as reported in this post at the time:

 ...Please be advised that due to the Verizon telephone outage, we are providing the Public Safety Department with temporary phone numbers....

Below is the RIOC Operations Committee meeting discussion on Roosevelt Island Emergency Preparedness Management.

You Tube Video of Roosevelt Island Emergency Preparedness Management Discussion

There was also a discussion on fixing the Roosevelt Island seawall particularly in light of the seawall break across the East River in Long Island City following Hurricane Irene as pictured below.

 Image Of Queensbridge Park Seawall Break From RIHS President Judy Berdy via Waterwire

Image of Queensbridge Park Seawall Break From Katie Ellman via Waterwire

Here's a Hurricane Irene aftermath video interview with Mr. Fernandez and more information on Roosevelt Island Cert Team from member Frank Farance here.