Saugus emergency equipment on call

SAUGUS – The Saugus Emergency Management Team is not on call with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), but its gear is.Emergency Management Director Paul Penachio said he missed the cut when the North Shore’s FEMA arm was sent out over the weekend to help with the ice storm that brought the western part of the state and much of New Hampshire and southern Maine to a stand still. Penachio and his Deputy Director Fritz White are part of the FEMA Team that works out of Beverly.”They got activated last night,” Penachio said Monday. “I’m waiting now to see if they will need our equipment.”Monday evening, Penachio and his crew were inventorying and readying cots, blankets, generators, lights, trailers and trucks in case a call came in for help. Penachio said Saugus is one of the only communities with three trucks ready to hit the road at a moment’s notice, which makes them very attractive to emergency management workers.He said the cots, blankets and generators would likely be used to open up additional shelters. Four days after the fierce ice storm hit New England and parts of New York, knocking out utilities for more than one million residents, the effects still linger. According to reports, approximately 330,000 homes in the Northeast were still without power Monday.Penachio said that means people are going to need shelter.”They’re talking about the end of the week before the power’s on in some areas,” he said.When power goes down on a large scale like it did last weekend, Penachio said there is a priority list for getting it turned back on.”Police, fire, hospitals and places like nursing homes get their power back first,” he said. “Then the most populated areas then the less densely populated get their power back.”Penachio said if they get a call for gear, a crew would drive the three trucks to the designated spot, set up the generators and other equipment and head home.”I’ll probably leave one person out there,” he said. “It depends on the situation but we won’t know until we get the call.”