Intern Insight Week 2

My second week at the Department of Public Safety was an eventful and informative one. In the morning, I learned a lot about the Department’s mobile 911 unit, and was quite impressed by the amount of technology that is available to us at the county level. For some reason, I always assumed that county government was done MacGyver style, with very little materials to work with. I am finding more and more that my assumption was very wrong, and that there are in fact a lot of resources available to county level government.

            In the afternoon I attended a county commissioner’s meeting, my first meeting of the sort. What struck me the most was how official the meeting was, yet how it still ran efficiently. Working within county government has shown me that government does work well on a local level, despite the public perception that government does not work well on any level. I am becoming more and more optimistic about local government by working with the Department of Public Safety, and am more at ease trusting them to manage our emergencies, like the pending zombie apocalypse.

Meet Andrew - Intern Insight

My name is Andrew Bower and I am a 21 year old student of Shippensburg University. My major at Shippensburg University is political science, and to answer the question that everyone always asks: no, I do not plan to run for office. I have no interest in making policy or nominating Supreme Court justices. Those are things that should be left for better men than me. I prefer to focus my time on the political side of government, working with campaigns and analyzing the actions, statements, and shoes of our elected officials. However, that is not to say that my interest lies entirely on the political side of government. I do have an interest in the finer points of government, for example, emergency management. When I was first given a tour of the Department of Public Safety I was fascinated. Just in the 2 hours that I was in the building for a presentation, my attention was captured. I wanted to know more about what happens when someone calls 911, or who takes care of the roads during a blizzard. These things may seem like the mundane workings of bureaucracy to most people, but to me they were a behind the scenes look at some of the most important functions of our local government. Up until then, I had thought that FEMA was the only emergency management agency. I thought if a disaster was bad that FEMA would come into the area of disaster and clean up. I also thought that each police station had its own 911 center, and calls were routed to it based on proximity. I was very wrong. To learn that there is one center for a whole county boggled my mind. I have learned a lot about the Department of Public Safety just in the past few months preparing for my internship here, and I am sure that I have a lot of learning left to do.

Intern Insight- Gary's Last Week

This week I followed along to a 9-1-1communications group meeting held by the South Central Task Force. In case I didn’t describe what the task force is in my previous blogs, the SCTF is a regional emergency preparedness task force that coordinates both public and private sector resources when disasters happen. During the meeting they went over different public notification systems and other public outreach programs. I thought it was nice to see a government group being fiscally responsible while they were trying to come up with solutions for some of the issues that they have.

Back in week 2 during my stay here as an intern, I talked about going to a college in the area and how I attended a meeting about an exercise. Well this week we followed up with the college and discussed the exercise a little bit more. I found out that an exercise of this level normally takes around a year to fully prepare a plan, and then exercise that plan. This college is going to be doing the exercise in half that time and I thought it was great to see that everyone was on the same page when discussing future times for meetings and deadlines.

This is my last week here at Cumberland County Public Safety. I really enjoyed all the experiences I had and all the people I got to meet. I believe I got the chance to see behind the scenes activities that regular people never get the chance to see. I have a much better understanding of the importance public safety in our communities. I don’t know how this country would survive without all the great people who are in these types of fields.

Thanks for reading!!!!

Gary Hoffman.

Intern Insight- Gary Week 4

            Throughout week 4 I spent most of my time working on the post-traumatic stress disorder project (PTSD). This project is very detailed, and I’m trying to make sure I include stress relieving activities that the employees at this facility could do as a team. I spent a little bit of time in the mobile command unit and learned that Cumberland County was one of the first counties in the area to get a mobile command unit.

            Once you walk into the mobile command unit you see that it is filled with laptops, radios, and some flat screen televisions. This unit would be used if for some reason the main center would lose power or something would happen that would force them out their building.

            As I said I spent most of my week working on a project about PTSD, and this is the same project I wrote about last week in my other blog. I have done 2 drafts, and for the most part the paper is done. But I am now working on flyers that will be handed out to the employees. These flyers will be about team activities to help improve communication, reduce stress, and improve team work. An example of an activity that I came up with was having teams build free standing towers. They will have a week or so to build their towers. When the competition is over they can vote on whose tower they liked more and why. This activity will help improve all the things I discussed above. That has been my week at Cumberland County Public Safety.

Thanks for reading!!!

Intern Insight- Gary- Week 3

As a student when I went through high school I was always told not to drive intoxicated for the obvious reasons. But the schools I went too showed 1990’s videos with horrible actors and the videos were easier to laugh at than it was taking them serious. Well, in week 3 of my time at Cumberland County Public Safety I attended a mock accident at Carlisle high school. The driver’s education teacher had the students who were soon attending their prom watch emergency responders (fire fighters, police, ambulances, and even a medevac helicopter) perform their responsibilities at a fake crash. This mock accident was the closest you could ever get to a real accident, and I think it was great to see a school take steps like this to help their students understand the consequences of driving drunk. I think the students at high schools who see these types of mock accidents will always get more out of it than they would videos.

For most of the week I have been working on a project about post-traumatic stress disorder and how it affects responders and dispatchers. For those who don’t know, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an emotional illness that is classified as an anxiety disorder and usually develops as a result of a terribly frightening, life threatening, or otherwise highly unsafe experience. Because those who work as a dispatcher are exposed to constant traumatic events, or go through a series of traumatic events they could begin to develop PTSD. I think this project is important because dispatchers work 12 hour shifts and they deal with traumatic calls every day. I have been trying to come up with different activities that can be done to help dispatchers cope with the everyday events, and how they could lower their stress levels. PTSD and the way it affects dispatchers is one of the biggest lessons learned in my time at Cumberland County Public Safety.

Intern Insight- Gary, Week 2

My second week here was great. I got to see more behind the scene operations, and was able to attend some meetings which were very helpful. Before this internship I did not know about all the work people in emergency management do on a day to day basis. There is so much time and effort put in to make sure counties are ready for even the worse of disasters.

This week I got to attend a meeting where several counties got together and discussed projects and exercises that each county was currently working on. I enjoyed this meeting because it showed how coordinated central Pennsylvania is. The counties that were involved in this meeting are also planning on doing a group exercise which again shows how coordinated and together our area is. After attending this meeting, I feel pretty comfortable that if a disaster or tragic event were to occur then the situation would be handled the best it could.

Personally I would love to be an emergency management coordinator for my county or have a job that has responsibilities in this field. This week I was able join in a meeting where a new coordinator was being brought up to speed with his/her responsibilities and different materials that would be needed. It was great to have the ability to see how well important information is transferred to new personnel.

Lastly I was able to tag along to one of Pennsylvania’s premier college’s and attend a meeting about an exercise that would test the preparedness of the emergency personnel and the school officials. I don’t think people really know how much thought schools put in to exercises or events that could possibly happen in real life and take the lives of students and faculty. It was such a great experience and it was nice to know that schools do worry about these types of situations and take steps to protect their students and faculty.

Intern Insight- Gary, Week 1

Our new intern has arrived and is excited to be blogging to tell you about his experience with us!  Gary comes to us from Central Penn College and is majoring in Homeland Security!         

My first week at Cumberland Counties Communication Center was a great experience. I like most people did not know what really goes on a 9-1-1 call center. I also did not know what to expect when I got a tour of the facilities. I want to try to describe the facility so you can get a picture of what this place looks like. Imagine a building that has a bunch of offices, where many of the staff members have multiple monitors. I thought it was cool to see the Emergency Operation Center. For those who don’t know what an Emergency Operation Center is, it’s a huge room where emergency management officials handle long term issues that arise from a disaster. This room has more computers than a College computer lab. This room is filled with huge smart boards, which during the time of an emergency would display just about every important detail needed by the officials that would be in the room. The 9-1-1 center which is the next room over is just as amazing. In the 9-1-1 center there are a number of stations. Each station has a different duty. For instance, one station might deal with the fire department and EMS, while another station would deal with the police department. Then there are stations that backup other stations that need help because they are getting too many calls at one time. Each station worker has the ability to read real time information that would be on 1 of his/her multiple monitors.

I hope I detailed the facility enough that you could possibly have a decent picture in your mind. Trust me this facility is a thing of beauty, which I think is great. This week after I met many of the faculty members and got myself situated and I began doing some work. I began a project that has a good deal of importance. I began sending by mail a couple papers to organizations or facilities in the County that save lives or help the elderly. These papers include needed information about the generators they use, and if they never thought about having a generator maybe now they would begin to think about obtaining one. Generators are very important because during an emergency if power would go out they would need a backup to keep their facilities running. This week I also attended my first staff meeting. The staff meetings here are much different than the ones I have had at other jobs. The meetings are not simple 5 minute greeting meetings. Instead they are filled with key information that enables the staff members to be on the same page like training dates and details on different projects that are going on.  The County has a great group of people that love their jobs, and are very serious about the work they do here.

Intern Insight- Final Words

It is time for us to say farewell to Chris the Intern!  He has been a great resource and we are sad to see him go!  We know the future holds great things for Chris and we congratulate on his pending graduation from Central Penn!  A new intern will be starting soon and will hopefully have lots to share about their experience with DPS!

My time here at the Cumberland County Department of Public Safety / 9-1-1 Communications Center has come to an end and it has been an amazing ride. Everyone here has been beyond helpful and I have loved every minute of my time here. During my internship, I have completed multiple projects that I was assigned to complete at the beginning of January when I first arrived here. The first project that I worked on that allowed me to really understand what I was going to do here was the Weather Exercise. It allowed me to comprehend the importance of the little things when it comes to emergency management and what goes into making an evacuation plan. Everything from making sure addresses are correct to sending out invitations to the practice exercise at the end of March is vital to a smooth operating plan. The project that took me the longest to complete while I’ve been here was by far the Debris Management Plan. I worked on this plan for a couple of weeks due to the time it took me to gather information for it. Cumberland County Department of Public Safety does not have a Debris Management Plan, so any information that I could come across was vital. I also reached out to each of the 33 municipalities and gathered their information on waste disposal companies and what they planned to do in the event a debris management plan was needed.

           

During my 180 hours here I’d say that the most important things I have learned would be: 1) Always be organized, 2) The little things DO matter, 3) Connections are vital in this field, and 4) Always be prepared and have a plan for everything. When it comes to emergency management, timing means everything. Knowing who to dispatch and when to dispatch them can be the difference between life and death. The safety and well-being of county citizens is what matters most to the DPS and why they are here. What each one of these individuals go through on a daily basis to ensure the protection of others is beyond amazing. Connections and networking plays a huge role amongst this field due to the fact that you need to know who to call for certain situations and information. Being able to call someone and they already know who you are and what you are talking about and what you could possibly want can make a huge difference and help you get your job done sooner and with more detail. Calling a random individual who has no idea who you are and not sure of answers can really jeopardize what you are doing and be of little or no help to you. When it comes to emergency management, the little things like phone numbers, addresses, practice scenarios and training all add up to help when it counts. Making sure information is 100% accurate and going through the proper training can ensure a successful emergency operations plan.

I cannot thank the Department of Public Safety enough for all that they have done for me. Every person here has been a great help and were willing to share their knowledge with me when I needed it. I hope to be back soon to see the EOC in full effect during the weather exercise in the next few weeks and how my hard work paid off.  Also, thank you to all who have read my blog throughout my 8 weeks here. I enjoyed providing an inside view of what the DPS / 911 Center actually does on a daily basis and I hope you all enjoyed reading about what I experience on a daily basis. Writing this blog does not do this place justice. I cannot express just how much I have learned in such a short period of time and what I was able to accomplish.

Intern Insight- Week 6 and 7

The last couple of weeks here have been quite busy. The beginning of last week started off with me working in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) the entire day. I had to work on combining all of the debris management information that I had gathered over the last week and begin to put it into one common template that all the other emergency plans follow. These plans make it extremely easy for the EOC and 911 Center to contact who they need to in a timely manner and follow the step by step directions that are provided to ensure cleanup after a disaster is quickly accomplished. It took me a good week and a half to acquire all of the information that I have now; everything from waste disposal companies, to federal regulations on what the county is allowed to dispose of and how to do it properly. Many individuals believe you can just take all of the accumulated debris and haul it off in one dumpster. Unfortunately, by doing that you could be causing much more harm than good and just adding to the problems that you already have.

Starting off my next week I was allowed to attend a meeting with Eric and Connie at the Cumberland County Court House. The meeting involved getting together with a couple of the Information Technology guys and going over the new NARM (Notification and Resource Manual) version. Connie and Eric developed the idea of the NARM. It is an amazing database that allows any of the employees to search vendors, facilities, and other employees so they can easily get in contact and with them and have the information they need when working on other projects and plans. As I mention time and time again, timing is everything when it comes to Emergency Management. This new version of the database just has a few changes from the old one and allows for a much more organized search process. The rest of the week I will be working on my emergency debris management plan and I hope to have it finished within a couple days. My time here at the Cumberland County Department of Public Safety is beginning to come to an end and I want to make sure that I demonstrate everything that I have learned into this plan before these last 2 weeks.

Learn more about the Intern Insight here!

Intern Insight- Week 5

Another productive and fun filled week here at the Department of Public Safety! To start off my week I went to an Agricultural Subcommittee meeting at HACC. At this meeting there were discussions about how the county would handle decontamination of animals, whether domestic or agricultural, during hazardous situations. As well as how these animals would be transported, sheltered, and handled. It can be extremely dangerous handling animals such as cows and horses when they are frightened. This is why the committee discussed training exercises that teach individuals how to properly care for them in these situations. After the meeting, I came back to the EOC and began to work on my FEMA NIMS courses. These NIMS ( National Incident Management System) courses cover preparedness, communications and information management, resource management, and command and management within FEMA as well as outlines the responsibilities and activities that are consistent with the National Training Program. At the end of each course, I take a final exam and receive a certificate if I pass.

The rest of the week I began to update the Dam Emergency Action Plan checklists for the 9-1-1 Communications Center. These checklists contain individuals and numbers of each facility that they need to contact in a specific order if there were to be an emergency regarding the dams. The checklists make it easier for the dispatchers to get a hold of everyone much quicker instead of having to search for the numbers themselves. When it comes to emergencies, time is crucial. Thursday, I attended a Cumberland County Commissioners meeting at the court house and was able to watch the Board of Commissioners present one of our dispatchers, Jon Anschutz, with the blue stork pin. The Stork Pin identifies those dispatchers who have assisted in the delivery of a baby by providing pre-arrival instructions. You can read that story by going to Cumberland County’s Facebook page and following the article link. Overall, I continue to enjoy my time here and experience new things each day. Each person here continues to provide me with their own advice I can leave here with that will help me in my future. The one common piece of advice I continue to hear is about the importance of relationships and networking. You never know when you may need someone you can trust or to help you with something important you’re working on. I have already met tons of individuals who have offered to help me in the future if I need anything.

Learn more about Intern Insight !

Intern Insight Week 4

This week has basically been a continuance of the last couple of weeks. As I’ve mentioned before, Emergency Management is all about being able to successfully multi-task. As of now, I am continuing to make phone calls to each of the municipalities within the county in order to acquire their emergency management information for when it comes to debris management. A common problem that occurs is that individuals do not take this type of situation or information seriously until a disaster/storm hits and the problem actually occurs. That is why the Department of Public Safety strives to make sure they have plans in place for these types of situations and can handle it accordingly and quickly. Remember, “Failing to plan; is planning to fail.”

            Not only am I making phone calls, but I am also going through and updating each emergency checklist for the counties Dam Emergency Action Plans. These specific dams are categorized into hazard levels and helps to determine which ones are more at risk than others when storms occur. The checklists that the EOC (Emergency Operations Center) follow are extremely important and list who needs to be contacted and in what order to contact them. The phone numbers and other contact information need to be as up-to-date as possible or it could slow down the process when an emergency occurs and put towns and citizens in danger. I never actually realized just how important the “little things” are when it comes to planning until I started to intern here. I don’t think people realize just how important the Department of Public Safety is and what each person here goes through on a daily basis to make sure the counties residents are safe. 

*Learn more about Intern Insight !

Intern Insight Week 3

Finishing up my third week here at the Department of Public Safety and I have just about finished my weather exercise project.  When I arrived here the first day my internship supervisor game me my intern binder which was filled with a wide variety of projects that I could complete during my 180 hours here.  After finishing the task of sending out mailing to multiple establishments in regards to their emergency management, it was time for me to start an emergency debris management project.  This project involves me helping the department form an emergency debris management plan and helps me to understand just how important and crucial debris management can possibly be.  Look back to 2011 when Tropical Storm Lee hit Pennsylvania and the damage it did.   The Susquehanna River reached a record high of around 40 feet and destroyed bridges and anything else in its path.  With this came enormous amounts of storm debris and left the counties figuring out how to dispose of it all.  We now with the information of an emergency debris management plan these problems and concerns will be a thing of the past and everyone will be prepared for the worst.  I am starting this project right now by calling each municipality office within the county and acquiring any information that will be of help in forming this plan.  That includes waste disposal services, contact information, etc.

On Tuesday this week I attended a Safe Schools meeting with Eric Hoerner and it allowed me to see just how much work goes into keeping educational facilities prepared for disasters and what their plans are.  As you can see during these first few weeks here, I have already received a small taste of what emergency management is.  From meetings with FEMA and PEMA to the Safe Schools Association and debris management, there is never a dull day here at the Department of Public Safety.  One thing I must mention is that the skill of multitasking is very important in emergency management.  Everyone here is always working on something and usually more than one project at a time.  If you are unable to multi-task, you will have a rough time in this field.  I've only been here 3 weeks and I have been introduced to a wide array of topics and have projects under each of them.  You never know what is going to be thrown at you next, but that just adds to the fun of it!

*Go to http://bit.ly/wlSeqi to learn more about the Intern Insight Series.

Intern Insight- Week #2

I have been at the Department of Public Safety now for a total of five days and as I mentioned in my first post, I absolutely love it here. Every day seems to get better and I have been learning a lot of information very quickly. My first couple of days was information overload trying to memorize some of the common acronyms used around here. I also was trying to memorize everyone’s name, and what each room was responsible for. This week I have been working on my first project known as the “weather exercise” in the EOC. The EOC is the Emergency Operations Center and it is basically the central command of the building carrying out strategic overview of any emergency situation or disaster. I have been working on this project with Eric and Connie. Eric is the Operations & EOC Coordinator and Connie is the administrative coordinator. The weather project is being conducted to obtain feedback from multiple facilities to encourage them in participating in the statewide weather exercise that takes place on March 29th. I have also been going through multiple files determining what facilities have and do not have emergency plans on file and trying to encourage those who do not, to send us one immediately and for those who do to send us an updates to it that they may have.
Doing projects like this really allow me to see how much work actually goes into planning and preparing for emergency situations. Even menial tasks that you think are just boring and pointless all lead up to one common goal that will eventually be in place to help the citizens of Pennsylvania. Recently, I have sat in on a couple of meetings with PEMA (Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). It was a great experience being able to see a state and federal emergency management agency communicate with one another and how the state goes about getting funding for certain things. As my second week here comes to a close, I start off my third week attending a Mass Evacuation working group meeting with Eric. I can’t wait to see what else is in store for me and what other acronyms I’ll be using by the end of next week. Until next week, I leave you with one of my favorite proverbs that fits well into what I have learned thus far: “He who fails to plan, plans to fail.”



*Go to http://bit.ly/wlSeqi to learn more about the Intern Insight Series.

Intern Insight- Day 1

My name is Christopher Cawley and I am a 4th year student at Central Penn College working towards a Bachelor's Degree in Homeland Security Management. This is my first day interning here at the Cumberland County 9-1-1 Communications Center. As an intern I have been asked to elaborate on what I believe the communications center actually does, since i have come here with no prior knowledge of it.

When I first received word from my academic advisor that I would be interning at the communications center, I can honestly say that I was not excited. With the words "communications center" I believed that I would be "communicating" with the general public in relation to emergency calls. As a 20 year old college student, this obviously did not site too well with me. From the start I was aware that the responsibilities of the communications center included emergency calls, as well as emergency management response. Once I got in touch with my internship coordinator, I noticed that I would be part of the Department of Public Safety. That's when I started to assume more about where I would be doing my internship and honestly had no idea what I could possibly be doing. However, after being here for less than a few hours I have already learned more about this department than I could have imagined. Even a quick 30 minute meeting has helped me to understand so far what I would be doing here and exactly just how important the communications center is. I really look forward to my time here and cannot wait to expand my knowledge of the department. As for now, I can say don't take the of any department literally, since there is bound to be more to it than just "communicating".

*Go to http://bit.ly/wlSeqi to learn more about the Intern Insight Series.

Intern's Insight- New Blog Series

We at DPS are rather proud of the work we do, but have come to the shocking realization over the years that the average citizen has limited knowledge as to what that work is. While we do a lot to try to inform the public on what we do, prepare for shocking fact number two, we aren’t always the best at telling our own story. We tend talk too technical, use too many acronyms (we LOVE acronyms, too much), and tend to leave out important items, because we assume people are already aware! With all of that said we’ve decided to try a new approach to telling our story, and with that we introduce to you the Intern Insight Series on our blog.

We couldn’t very well take a stranger off of the street and ask them to hang out with us for a few weeks and blog about, so we did the next best thing…we’ve tasked our intern with telling our story through his eyes. Our new intern has come to us with very little knowledge about what we do. All he knows is that his college advisor, Professor Sam Morgan told him this would be a great place to get some experience. Chris will be blogging with us for the next few weeks and will be telling you all of the neat and surprising things he learns! Hopefully our readers and Chris come away from this blogging experiment with a better understanding of DPS!

Before we post Chris’s first blog, we’d like to tell you a little bit about him. Chris comes to us as a senior with Central Penn College here in Cumberland County. He is a Homeland Security Management Major and hails New Jersey. He has an interest in law enforcement and once spent 8 weeks living in Croatia and traveling around Europe as part of a student emersion program! Those are the random facts folks. We’ll be posting Chris’s first blog later today!

*The DPS intern program is available to those interested in a career in emergency services, emergency management or homeland security. Those wishing to intern with DPS must be enrolled in a post-secondary program. DPS would like to thank Central Penn College for working with us to provide cultivating intern program for students in their Homeland Security Management Program.