The Roane and Calhoun Local Emergency Planning Committees met at Roane General Hospital on Wednesday, March 19th, 2025.
Those attending the meeting were Joseph Cantley, Shannon May, Makkah Ratliff, Douglas Conrad, Woody Wilson, Curt Bartholomew, Tina Persinger Hamrick, Jess Metz, Jason Wilson, Hillary Hickman, Judy Brannon, Shari Johnson, and Eric Lupardus. Randall Richards and Jacob McCumbers attended via Teams viewer.
The meeting was called to order and led by Melissa Gilbert of the Roane LEPC followed by the Treasurer’s report showing $9469.64 in available funds.
THE LEPC purpose is to form a partnership with state, local and tribal government, responders and industry as an enhancement for prevention, preparedness, response and recovery, planning exercises and training. LEPC boards are appointed by the County Commission who is responsible for overseeing the planning and response within their communities.
Under Old Business the two counties continued to discuss their individual Emergency Response Plans. The local LEPC’s (Local Emergency Planning Committee) are responsible for developing and maintaining a local emergency response plan, ensuring a quick and effective response to chemical and all other emergencies, and conducting public information and education on such events. Having an Emergency Response plan in place is vital to public safety at the time when an emergency, whether manmade or weather related, occurs. Those plans are expected to be reviewed and updated annually, however the most recent on file for Calhoun County is 2013. Emergency plans provide information such as what type of chemicals are located in or pass through your community, where emergency shelters are located if necessary, what agencies will provide specific services and what equipment is available. With new members appointed to the Calhoun LEPC Board, their intention is to immediately work to update Calhoun’s Emergency plan and continue to keep it reviewed.
Hazconnect, a service for West Virginia Emergency Management, is a web based information sources that requires Owners or operators of facilities with hazardous chemicals on hand in quantities equal to or greater than set threshold levels to submit Tier II forms between January 1 and March 1 for the previous calendar year. The purpose of the Tier II form is to provide state and local officials and the public with specific information on hazardous chemicals present at their facility during the previous calendar year. The West Virginia Emergency Management Division (WVEMD) requires all regulated facilities to submit (Tier II) information electronically by using Hazconnect (formerly Tier II Manager), WVEMD’s online filing system. Each facility’s username is unique to its physical (9-1-1) address. During the Roane Calhoun LEPC meeting it was discovered that the access by Emergency personnel in both Roane and Calhoun County was very limited. Those who should have access to the information online are Directors of Emergency Services, Fire Chiefs, Hospital administration, 911 directors, and other emergency services. However, all but one of those listed with access were inactive.
Calhoun Commissioner Eric Lupardus informed the Committee that he and others had met in Calhoun as a part of the FENIX team. The group are tasked with economic development in Calhoun and are currently working with the American Medicines Company for their consideration of Calhoun as a location for a new Pharmaceutical plant. With that consideration comes a need to have an active emergency management plan in place and the team is actively pursuing the completion of that plan through the Calhoun LEPC.
According to Melissa Gilbert, The Roane County plan is currently a 16 page document that is currently incomplete, needing local chemicals listed as well as routes and methods of chemical transportation. According to Ms. Gilbert, Calhoun’s plan is several pages with a lot of information that is not needed. Written in 2013, there are no facilities listed and other vital information is missing. A discussion was made around the fact that the collection of information for these plans, such as chemical list, reaction and methods of evacuation, service availability, etc., calls for multiple people to be working together to accomplish the completion quickly. Each community will strive to establish and stock emergency shelters, promote prevention and awareness. One recommendation was for every community to have a mobile Starlink system that would allow emergency communication.
Kenny Harris provided an EmComm History over view regarding emergency communications if the local phone communication was out. “It’s very easy to take out communication such as fiber optic cable being destroyed by an accident, Harris said. He suggested a back up plan of some type be in place should the need arise to communicate in another manner than phone. Amateur Radio Operators were suggested as a definite source of communication in an emergency as well as education of the community in who to call should the 911 system go down.
Calhoun and Roane subcommittees to be created to work toward completion of Emergency plans. The next Calhoun/Roane LEPC meeting will be April 15th, 2025 at 1 p.m.
There will be a meeting of the State Emergency Response Commission from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on April 9th, 2025 in Charleston.
