Seminar helps plan for bombings
CRANBERRY TWP — John Rinard travels around the country giving seminars to emergency services personnel, and of their agencies, fewer than 20 percent have plans to deal with bombing incidents.
That's why Rinard, who is a training specialist with Texas A&M's Engineering Extension Service, traveled to Cranberry Township Monday for a three-day seminar to educate officials on emergency preparedness for bombings.
The program is paid for and sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security and is free to local officials. Rinard said he does about 50 seminars a year.
To illustrate the point of his visit, Rinard asked the 20 people in attendance to raise their hands if their agency had a plan to deal with bombings. Nobody raised a hand.
“We are way behind the curve on this,” Rinard said. “It's not a question of if but when something will happen again.”
The instructor referenced the Boston Marathon bombing last year as the most recent example of how agencies need a “safe, effective and integrated” response to emergencies.
Butler County doesn't have a subway system or any high profile targets, Rinard said, but emergency agencies here could get called to respond to Pittsburgh, which has a myriad of bridges, tunnels and an airport that could one day become a target for terrorists.
Rinard has a book as thick as the Bible that outlines extensive procedures and rules for formulating a bombing response plan, a book generated by the federal government that serves as an outline for agencies.
“Something has to exist on a local level, even if it's just a template we can work and build on later,” Rinard said.
The three-day seminar will include small group workshops. The entire process is split between two schools of thought and training: one for strategic planning by decision makers and supervisors and one for tactical response plans by first responders.
Jeff Schueler, Cranberry Township director of public safety, who is in the first category, said Monday it's important to have agencies all in one place for planning purposes.
“Obviously with any kind of emergency, it's critical to have a plan in place,” he said. “Everybody needs to be on the same page.”
Ted Fessides, the deputy director of Cranberry Township EMS, also attended the seminar and said it's good to get everyone together now before officials are faced with an emergency that they have no plan for.
“For a long time we didn't think it could happen here,” he said. “And then the Boston bombing happened. Now we know it can and will happen here, and we need to have a plan in place.”
Officials from Beaver Falls, Cranberry Township, Duquesne University and Allegheny County's Hazmat attended the seminar along with other agencies from Allegheny County.
The seminar runs through Wednesday and is at Cranberry Township's public safety building.
