Separation in Preparation key to disaster survival

MARYSVILLE – Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson’s mantra, “The Separation is in the Preparation,” could apply to disaster preparedness.

Whether it’s an earthquake, an oil train accident, or something else, a disaster is bound to happen someday in Marysville.

And the city wants its residents to be prepared for it. It could be the difference between life and death.

Enter Diana Rose, the city’s emergency and risk management officer, who says everyone needs to have a disaster plan.

“A plan will give you peace of mind. We want everyone to be prepared with emergency and evacuation plans,” she said, adding every home and business should have their own plan and go over it with family and employees.

A spot where everyone would meet up in case of disaster is key to make sure everyone is accounted for, she said.

“People need to have a plan in place and practice it,” Mayor Jon Nehring said, adding it’s good to have a phone contact number for someone out of state as local lines are flooded with calls in an emergency.

While police and fire will do everything they can in an emergency, each individual needs to be responsible for their own actions because safety personnel can’t help everyone at once, officials said.

To aid in that, Rose has an area on the city’s website where people can go to and find out how to make their own preparedness kits. People should look at the site and print out material they want because in a disaster that website may not be up because of a power outage.

The city also is offering CERT training free this fall to teach residents how to respond in a disaster. The program educates community members about disaster preparedness and trains them in basic response skills – including fire safety, search and rescue,and medical operations.

“If you don’t have a plan it can lead to chaos,” Cmdr. Jeff Goldman of the Marysville Police Department said, adding contingency plans also are needed because disasters can occur anywhere and anytime.

People can sign up for alerts that would help in a disaster.

Snohomish County Emergency Management is asking Marysville- and Arlington-area residents to sign up to receive advance alerts and warnings.

Director John Pennington asks people to sign up via public.alertsense.com/SignUp/?regionID=1129

Alert Sense has been the county’s Reverse Notification system since 2007.

“We consistently utilize it for advanced notification of weather-related events, including floods and windstorms… and often times days in advance of potential problems,” he says in an email.

He said a more-advanced version of Alert Sense will start in the next few months. “I would like to get more individuals to opt-in to our system,” Pennington said.

Another city program is called Map Your Neighborhood. With it, people gather and share information and skills about what they can do in the event of a disaster. Also, the city is updating emergency plans that will be approved by the state early next year, Rose said.

Meanwhile, Marysville plans a drill next year based on a train derailment, officials said. That exercise will simulate a chlorine gas spill and involve police, firefighters and various city departments.

One growing concern in Arlington and Marysville is the increase in oil tanker traffic on rail cars. Each oil tanker car carries about 33,000 gallons, and there are up 110 cars per train. The Pacific Northwest is averaging 2.5 oil trains per day, most headed toward refineries in Skagit and Whatcom counties.

Firefighters won’t be able to put out the flames if a tanker explodes, so their focus will be evacuating the area and keeping the fire from spreading, said Brad Reading, an assistant chief at Snohomish County Fire District 1. The minimum evacuation zone for an oil fire is 1,000 feet in every direction. Toxic fumes are a concern.

Burlington Northern Sante Fe offers three-day classes for firefighters in Pueblo, Colo. They practice with oil cars that are lit on fire.

The Marysville Fire District has sent one firefighter to Pueblo, Chief Martin McFalls said. In December, they plan to have BNSF visit and bring an actual oil car for crews to look over.

At least once a day, Marysville fire rigs responding to calls are delayed by trains, McFalls said.

“The increase just in rail travel since 2007 has been tremendous, and it’s anticipated to get much, much worse in the next three to ten years,” McFall said.

For a major oil fire, state and federal teams likely would take over after the initial response. Local firefighters still are working on their plans, Reading said. In Washington in recent years, BNSF has trained more than 2,000 firefighters, police and emergency management folks on oil-related incidents, spokesman Gus Melonas said.

BNSF also has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on rail safety upgrades and has its own specialty incident teams and contractors on call if something happens. That’s in addition to regional stockpiles of booms, foam and skimmers, Melonas said.

If a train explosion does occur, the best advice is to get out of there. But be careful. “Chaos would lead to more injuries,” Goldman said.

Police will cordon off the area and reverse 911, and social media will be used to warn people to evacuate. The Red Cross would set up shelters.

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