Shelter subcommittee: ‘Who’s going to call the shots?’
By Janet Wise
Turley Publications Correspondent
WILBRAHAM – The Superintendent’s Conference Room in the existing Minnechaug Regional High School was filled to capacity on the evening of Feb. 2 during the school district’s Shelter Subcommittee’s first meeting.
The blue ribbon panel was formed to look into the use of the new Minnechaug building as a shelter, after the bad experiences of those who needed shelter during the October Halloween Weekend Nor’easter. The subcommittee includes Wilbraham Fire Captain David Bourcier, Hampden Police Chief Jeff Farnsworth, Hampden Selectman Vinnie Villamaino, Wilbraham Building Inspector Lance Trevallion, as well as Nicole Smith, assistant principal of Minnechaug and Ed Cenedella, the school maintenance director.
School committee chairman Scott Chapman opened the meeting by stressing, “The new school (Minnechaug) will be used as a shelter once we open doors in the fall,” and that the subcommittee was formed to determine how it will be used and, “who’s going to call the shots.”
Farnsworth pointed out that it’s not realistic to set parameters or box in when the building will be used as a shelter; as he said, “No one would have imagined an F1 tornado hitting Wilbraham,” and instead suggested that the towns would need to take a cue from public safety officials when determining when the school would be needed as a shelter.
Keep Things Simple
Farnsworth said, “I’m a big proponent of keeping things simple. In this case, you have basic needs and you need to meet them.” The most basic need, he said, is for the appointment of four or five trained shelter directors who know who to call when the building is being used as a shelter. For example, who has the key to the building? How are the lights turned on? Who should be called if the plumbing in the shelter fails?
Both Farnsworth and Bourcier indicated that it wouldn’t be appropriate for members of either the police or fire departments to be shelter directors because both departments are stretched thin and the general services provided by their departments don’t stop during a disaster.
Donna Cooper, a representative from the American Red Cross, asked if there was a reason that the towns wouldn’t call the Red Cross to run their shelter. Farnsworth’s quick answer was “you couldn’t get here” and added that the towns need to be prepared to be self-sufficient during the first 24 to 48 hours of an emergency situation, pointing to the difficulty the Red Cross would have had trying to get into Wilbraham immediately following either the tornado or snowstorm last October.
Cooper indicated that members of the Red Cross are currently in talks with the two towns’ selectmen about the possibility of using Minnechaug as a ‘multi-jurisdictional’ rather than a local shelter, which means that the building would be used to shelter people from a number of towns, rather than just residents of Wilbraham and Hampden. The benefits would be that the Red Cross would assume the cost, management and clean up of the building. However, if the building is kept as a local shelter, it would still be possible to call in the Red Cross to run it; in that case, the Red Cross would still pay for all expenses incurred while they were running the shelter.
Villamaino, based on his experience last October when the Hampden Senior Center was used as a two-town shelter, recommended that both towns’ boards of selectmen add a shelter line item to their respective budgets, since it does cost money to run a shelter.
By the end of the meeting, it was agreed that School Superintendent Marty O’Shea will designate five people as shelter managers by the next school committee meeting. These managers will then undergo some tabletop training by the Red Cross, probably during late spring into the summer. In the meantime, Cenedella and Trevallion will ascertain the capacity of the shelter, and the school committees lawyers will work with the towns’ lawyers to agree on the finances (i.e., what/how will expenses be reimbursed when the school is used as a shelter.)
The meeting was deemed a success by Chapman, who said that “everyone’s committed to making this happen” and that progress had been made in identifying next steps.
Correspondent Janet Wise can be reached at j_mac4@hotmail.com.
