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About rusnivek

Emergency Services

Rolling out the brand new 2019 ICS-400: Advanced ICS at the Illinois Air National Guard

Goooooood morning all! Reporting live from the Illinois Air National Guard base for the new 2019 ICS-400 course!

Proud to partner with our Department of Defense assets from the US Air Force.

Outstanding kickoff from Chief Otto this morning as we continue to enhance the skills of everyone from across the State of Illinois.

As we kick off the class, it’s great to see participation from various agencies. Lots to discuss as logistical challenges between DHS vs DoD that clearly extend beyond resources and cost funding allocation.

Learning through realistic training helps concrete concepts presented…esp scenarios on area command.

Love seeing the familiar faces as we continue preparing our disaster responses pros from across the State of Illinois

Group work allows for all parties to contribute and openly discuss challenges they have seen with disaster operations.

It’s rare that locals get to partner and train with regional assets. In fact, in our new training, we get to showcase the skills of other larger national assets who focus on logistical support…like the Illinois Air National Guard – 182nd AirWing.

We close out the day talking about the importance of the EOC and how it supports the roles of Unified Command (UC) or Area Command and all the Incident Command Posts (ICPs) in the field.

Sharing the importance of good situational awareness and a common operating picture is critical in the success of any emergency response and the recovery of the community.

We often find that communities successfully recovery after a disaster much quicker if they are better prepared and exercise their plans…..yep, that’s called community resilience.

Proud to share our response successes with all of our participants from across the State of Illinois.

More tomorrow!

@rusnivek

All five phases of Emergency Management in one picture

One way we can teach our community (using Emergency Management concepts)…..is flooded roadways. Yep, that’s right, we often have the general public drive their cars through flooded roadways and get into trouble, injured, or die.

So lemme break it down in our five phases of Emergency Management

Statement: One of the common emergencies Emergency Management see during heavy rains is flooding.

Mitigation: In past flooding, Emergency Management have identified areas that are susceptible for flooding that is unsafe for any safe passage under this bridge.

Preparedness: Emergency Management has painted a highly visible ruler on the bridge pillar to help public safety (or anyone) to address and evaluate the water levels.

Protection: By identifying the dangers, Emergency Management is better able to coordinate resources used to protect the public as we can now focus our efforts on barriers, caution tape, road closures, etc…

Response: During terrible weather, Emergency Management can share critical safety messages with the public and allocate more resources used to rescue individuals who did NOT heed the warnings.

Recovery: Thanks to proper preplanning, Emergency Management can reference pictures of this flooded area that can be leveraged against non-disaster time pictures which can provide good background for windshield surveys and damage assessments for state, regional, and Federal partners.

Boom.

Good way to improve the safety of your municipality.

Great way to enhance your operational coordination and recovery efforts.

Outstanding way to improve the resilience of your community.

Can you do this in your community? You sure can, just contact your local Emergency Management Agency for more details.

@rusnivek

Monday fun as I sit through the Illinois ICS Instructor rollout

All the fun one could want in an ICS Instructor update.

Good Monday Morning all!

Good to see Doug and Matt again. Let’s talk ICS!

Aside from a few major Illinois variances from national practice, not many changes in course content from national ICS Instructor update from FEMA EMI.

Though, TBH, I had to eat my words from May 2019 to my Region 5 peers as I didn’t think I was required to take a statewide. 3 hour drive, 8 hour class, and 3 hour return drive was more than enough time to eat humble pie.

Lots to do as we continue to enhance the skills of our public safety partners.

First rollout of the new 2019 ICS class is this Thursday!

@rusnivek

Free checklist for your preparedness efforts!

I often talk about preparedness efforts for any kind of emergency or disaster.

The hardest part is to get started in your effort…so grab a cup of coffee and get started today!

On a national scale, FEMA’s Ready.Gov program is a great start with several lists for FREE that you can use to get started.

Another great place to reference for any emergency or disaster is DuPage County OHSEM’s Emergency Preparedness‘s site that has a bunch of solid checklists as well as lots of links to other critical websites.

Regardless of where you live, your local Emergency Management Agency will help you hone your list to meet your needs.

Hope you got a good preparedness kit!

@rusnivek