NAHANT — Police Chief and Emergency Management Director Timothy Furlong sat down Friday morning with Assistant Director Carl Maccario to address the department’s efforts to prepare for a future crisis.
Public Information Program Supervisor Sarah Porter and Local Coordinator Matthew Kolhonen from MEMA (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency) also attended the meeting.
“When the Emergency Management Department was transferred over to under the police, we were able to secure the Humvee for high-water rescue, an emergency management truck, and a drone,” Maccario explained.
Maccario said a critical element of support has been the help of Town Administrator Tony Barletta.
“If the weather’s bad, we’re going to get cut off from the rest of society,” Maccario said, explaining the dangers that the town faces. “We have to be self-sufficient because nobody else is coming.”
Maccario credited Furlong with reaching out to MEMA to determine the best path forward, with the idea of running possible exercises to try and prepare the town for a disaster.
“When we first started, we were called ‘Civil Defense,’ from World War Two, but nobody’s going to invade Nahant, so we’re now known as ‘Emergency Management,” Maccario said. He added that he came to Barletta, and he explained the situation and how the town could improve its readiness to respond to emergencies. Maccario said Barletta showed his full support.
Maccario continued, “If we’re going to do something, we should do it right… How can we be a coastal community and not have these assets in place?”
He noted that the town has a shelter designated at Johnson Elementary School in case of an emergency. Now, the shelter also has supplies tucked away in order to care for community members should a disaster arise — like MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat), which can be shelved for over 20 years and still be completely safe to consume.
Furlong spoke about the impact the town’s CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) has had in helping the town prepare for worst-case scenarios. “It’s made up of civilians, who come and help us out in times of disasters,” Furlong said. “Their primary function here would be shelter operations.”
Furlong said that the fire department, Department of Public Works (DPW), and the police department can all continue their first-responder efforts. “CERT will usually be running the shelter, but they’re also trained in various different topics, including search and rescue, should we need them.”
“Our biggest fear is that we get hit with a hurricane, we’ll lose the causeway, and Nahant will separate into three different islands,” Furlong said. “If you look at the flood maps, it can get scary.”
Furlong continued, where he talked about the next steps in the town’s journey. “We’re not completely ready, like you’ve heard, we’ve made great progress… One thing we’ve done is commandeered a corner of Johnson School and put shelves up, foundation and all our equipment is stored in a dry location at the shelter,” he said.
“It’s just about constantly getting ready, should it ever happen,” Furlong said. “Working with MEMA has been a huge asset for us… We’re preparing ourselves to be cut off from the world.”
“From my position as a local coordinator for MEMA, I work with all the communities within Essex County and provide technical support and expertise,” Kolhonen said. “In this case, we did a lot of work on a comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, which every community should really have.”
Kolhonen continued, “To the Chief and Maccario’s credit, they’ve done really well at building a robust team, and have been very innovative, and ways to build out their department… We really stress that every community has a certain level of preparedness for whatever might be thrown at them.”
After the discussion about preparing for the spontaneous nature of the uncertain future, Chief Furlong and Maccario went outside the station to give a better look at the department’s Humvee — which it received free of charge from the U.S. Army in 2013 — and its new high-tech drone used for coastal surveillance to watch how flooding can affect the coastline.
Furlong was eager to show off the new drone, where he explained its huge importance in future disasters — he said it could run up to 45 minutes, switch between different lenses, and he can utilize its zoom-in feature to get an up-close look at something miles away.
