Pagliughi: Make Everyone Part of Emergency Team

SOMERS POINT – Again, municipal officials from throughout Cape May County heard county Emergency Management Director Martin Pagliughi state they are “the cavalry” when it comes to emergency situations.
Pagliughi spoke before the Cape May County League of Municipalities at its Oct. 28 dinner meeting, hosted by Ocean City at Crab Trap restaurant.
He urged leaders to “make everyone part of your emergency plan.” That includes municipal employees at all levels, not only in the OEM.
“Embrace emergency management and recognize that communities themselves will control and be more responsible for their destiny not if, but when the next major storm event arrives,” he read from the Powerpoint presentation.
Referring to his experience as Avalon mayor in several hurricanes and other emergencies, some of which knocked out power for several days, Pagliughi reminded them that many senior citizens and others may have functional needs that a storm will impair. Some may not drive, while others may refuse to evacuate, even when ordered, if their pets cannot be taken along to the shelter with them. To that end, Avalon secured its own mobile pet trailer that will deliver pets to the same shelter as their owners. Owners, however, must take care of their own animals.
Pagliughi cited the 7-year-old, little-known “Register Ready – New Jersey’s Special Needs Registry for Disasters.” This allows state residents with access and functional needs and their families, friends and associates an opportunity to provide information to emergency response agencies, so emergency responders can better plan to serve them in a disaster or other emergency.
The information collected is confidential and is not be available to the public. The information is held securely and only used for emergency response and planning.
“We did training on it, and learned that nobody knew about it,” he said. The data base included necessary information about those who may need special assistance in evacuations.
“Most towns have their own data base. But you have to go get them. You have to provide transportation. Don’t call the county. We are not going to provide it (transportation) for evacuees,” Pagliughi said.
Turning to his borough, Pagliughi said Avalon had secured transportation for those who might need it from a service that, in summer, transports bar patrons safely home. It costs nothing until needed, he said, and will be ready if and when needed.
During Superstorm Sandy, the county pressed four shelters into service. Pagliughi acknowledged that complacency is a danger for emergency planners, since many, even given Sandy’s impact, may elect to remain in their dwelling in the next storm.
In Sandy, about 800 were sheltered. “We had never identified any shelters until a month before that storm (Sandy),” Pagliughi said.
About eight years ago, Avalon planners made a pact with Cumberland County Vocational Technical School as a shelter.”We picked them up and took them to the Cumberland County shelter,” he added.
When planning shelters, Pagliughi urged that at least two emergency medical technicians, on 12 hours shifts, and two police officers be sent with the evacuees. They should go in shifts to augment sheriff’s officers at the shelters.
Why police and medics in a shelter? Pagliughi said when Atlantic City learned there was shelter available in Cumberland County, it sent busloads out of the flooded city. However, when they arrived, members of opposing street gangs were among those at the shelter.
“I said, ‘We need more cops to keep order,’” he reflected.
During shelter time, it’s truly a community endeavor, as he recalled in a blizzard six years ago, there were 150 humans in the firehouse along with 24 dogs, cats, a parrot and snake. “The dogs were chasing the cats, the cats were chasing the parrot and everybody was running from the snake,” he laughed. Things have improved since then, he said.
Pagliughi also urged municipal officials to have a third-party emergency cleanup crew under contract. Such an agency as Phillips and Jordan, used by Avalon cleaned the borough’s streets in three days as municipal employees were detailed for other work.
“You may have a contract and never have to use it,” he said. That cleanup was fully funded by FEMA, since it was in place within 72 hours after the storm ended. After that time, it would have been 75-25 percent local payment.
Also under contract for the Cumberland County shelter is a 300KW generator, that will be delivered when needed and rented for $1,400 per week.
Pagliughi also urged communities to have a communications plan, perhaps a website, that provides up to the minute storm or emergency information. As important facet of them is a tide gauge, since local emergency managers know the levels when flooding occurs.
While other seaside resorts sustained unthinkable destruction in Sandy, Avalon was virtually unscathed. Pagliughi credited the borough’s well-established dunes as providing that protection. As he displayed an aerial photograph of the 40th Street area, he quoted JoEllen Darcy, assistant secretary to the U.S. Army to a Senate committee, “I flew over the coast of New Jersey a day after Sandy hit. What I saw was the property behind the beaches in Avalon were well protected, where just a mile or some nearby where there had been no federal beach project, the community didn’t fare that well.”
He said the borough local some beach and dune erosion in Sandy, and there was street flooding, but no homes were lost, and the town reopened in a few days after the storm ended.
While some towns and owners may cherish ocean views without dunes, Pagliughi is a dune advocate with figures that proved his point: Mitigation is not an expense, it’s an investment.
Avalon enjoys a $7.8 billion ratable base.
Avalon is the only coastal community to enjoy a AAA bond rating from Standard and Poor’s due to its mitigation/protection efforts. Avalon is a safe investment.
Avalon property owners enjoy a 25 percent discount on flood insurance due to mitigation, the highest discount of any coastal community in New Jersey.
Avalon has been lauded by the CBS Evening News for having one of the most proactive mitigation programs in the U.S.
Avalon maintains a robust tourism economy even during the recent recession and post-Sandy due to expansive beaches and no damage to our infrastructure.
He also said since 2005, 11 beach nourishment projects placed over 2.4 million cubic yards of sand on the north end of the borough’s beachfront.