County EMS plans for future storms
Jerry E. Halmon, Staff Reporter
June 1st, through the end of
October is officially hurricane
season. But Mother Nature
doesn’t seem to know that. With
two tropical storms having
already formed off the coast of
South Carolina this year and
another having formed on the
west coast, it appears residents
of the east coast are in store for
a busy 2012 hurricane season.
In an effort to prepare for
the hurricane season, the
Bamberg County Emergency
Services Office, along with state
and local governmental
agencies entered into a joint
effort with Aero Bridge, which
is a national aviation volunteer
organization, to hold a military
style hurricane response training
exercise, on Tuesday at the
newly refurbished Bamberg
County Airport.
Greg Stidom, Field
Director of Emergency Services
for Aero Bridge of North and
South Carolina and based at the
Bamberg County Airport said
that aircraft coming from North
Carolina, South Carolina and
Georgia during the exercise
would be bringing in basic
supplies like water, food and oil
for the aircraft. Those supplies
Stidom noted would be staged
in the hangar area at the airport
to be used on Wednesday for the
exercise done by the County to
establish a port distribution and
to distribute those assets in the
community.
Stidom noted that along
with his role as liaison interacting
with other agencies
and specifically with Bamberg
County EMS, a part of his job
was to fly reconnaissance
missions over the two major
evacuation routes through
Bamberg County. The two main
areas of evacuation during a
hurricane that would impact this
area would be the coastal area
near Hilton Head and the
southwestern portion of
Charleston near the Ashley
River and James Island.
The main areas of response
being evaluated during
Tuesday’s exercise to the
fictional storm named “Jake”
were: The ability to provide
reconnaissance in real-time of
video and voice information
back to the EMS Center in
Bamberg County; Providing
reports on the evacuation routes
simulating a real exercise;
establishing an instant
management team responsible
for coordinating the incident
scene at the airport and
providing on-site management
making sure it is done safely.
Pat Williams, who served
as the Public Information
Officer for Tuesday’s exercise
noted that Bamberg County is
the first county in the state to
have an exercise of this kind
with Aero Bridge.
“So we’re very happy about
that,” Williams said, adding “So
we can find out what we need to
improve upon. We’re very
excited to have them here and
we thank them,” Williams
commented noting that all of
Aero Bridge’s members were
volunteers.
Williams commented that
one of the purposes of the mock
hurricane exercise was to
provide participants with an
opportunity to evaluate their
present response concepts,
plans, and capabilities during a
hurricane scenario.
Cliff Hale, an Aero Bridge
volunteer from Atlanta, who
flew his plane in on Tuesday
with supplies said the exercise
held on Tuesday was a “fairly
new” aspect of the Federal
Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) hurricane
preparation.
Hale, noted that the
Bamberg County Airport was
chosen for the exercise because
it is well inland and “fairly
isolated” and does get a lot of
airport traffic. It was noted that
Aero Bridge had invested 5000
man-hours of work over two
years in bringing the airport up
to a “technical level” so
operations can run out of
Bamberg.
Brenda Bassin, a volunteer
with Aero Bridge noted that the
Bamberg County Airport was
“an asset to the community” and
could be used to promote
business. She noted that close to
100 airplanes and volunteers
were expected to fly in on
Tuesday for the exercise, but
because of inclement weather
and prior engagements some
were forced to cancel.
