MEETING NOTICE

The next E TN Regional VOAD meeting will be: 

2 FEB, 2012 at 10:00am 

PLEASE SEND STORIES of YOUR RESPONSE

E TN VOAD Members:  Please send your organization's participation in the relief and recovery efforts from the Tennessee storms to Mary Beth: birgemb@knoxarc.org .   Please let us know what you have been doing, problems you may have encountered, things that have worked well, and a couple of pictures if you have any.   In other words, please share what you think is significant about your organizations response.  THANKS A BUNCH !

TVA DAMS HOLDING BACK WATER

TVA dams holding back water to help prevent downstream flooding

 By Dick Byrd Daily Times Correspondent

As East Tennessee and much of the South mourn the storm deaths and clean up the tornado damage, a new major problem is beginning. This one is a flood — a big flood that could reach historic proportions in some areas along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. It could be an even worse flood except for the work done by The Tennessee Valley Authority.
A combination of snow melt and ongoing heavy rain has worked to make the mighty Mississippi swell beyond its banks. Flooding is also a big problem on the Ohio and Arkansas Rivers, themselves major rivers that also happen to feed into the Mississippi. And it isn’t close to being over yet. Emergency officials in Shelby County estimated that 5,300 homes and businesses will likely be affected by flooding as the Mississippi River and its backed-up tributaries keep swelling. Properties include single-family homes, commercial and industrial properties, and apartments in at least 17 of the 41 zip codes in Shelby County, which includes Memphis.

RED CROSS / VOAD EXERCISE POSTPONED

Due to last week’s storms, the Red Cross/VOAD Exercise scheduled for
Wednesday, May 4, 2011, has been postponed. We will let you know the
new date as soon as possible. Thank you.

Jenny Holden
Training Coordinator
TN Homeland Security District 2
605 Bernard Avenue
Knoxville, TN 37921
865-215-1161 (office)
865-215-1176 (fax)
jenny.holden@knoxcounty.org

4 MAY TABLE-TOP EXERCISE POSTPONED

Due to the relief and recovery responses to the recent storms, the American Red Cross/TN Homeland Security District 2 Tabletop Exercise scheduled for 4 May is postponed and will be re-scheduled at a later date.

27 APR CHATTANOOGA STORM DAMAGE VIDEOS

Please click on this link to view video of the damage caused by the 27 April storm system that swept through the Tennessee Valley;
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2011/apr/27/live-coverage-severe-weather-conditions-chattanoog/

E TN Quarterly Meeting

The next Quarterly E TN VOAD meeting normally held the first Thursday in May has been postponed until June 9th because of the Red Cross exercise on 4 May.

The 9 June meeting will be held in the Alcoa Fire Department's training room at 9:30am in their HQ at 2010 North Wright Road, Alcoa, TN, near the TYS airport.

Here's a link to Google map of the location. Chief Robinson has asked us to park in the Alcoa Police parking lot that is co-located there with the Fire Department :

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Alcoa+Fire+Department,+Wrights+Road,+Alcoa,TN&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

Please let me ( Mulsand@aol.com ) know if you wish to add anything to the agenda. I think most of the meeting will be a discussion of the ARC exercise, and our organizations' responses to the Knoxville floods and the Greenback tornado. We will also be discussing our participation in the regional Emergency and Disaster Preparedness Fair at Chilhowee Park on 24 September. Please put that date on your calendar and direct any questions you may have about the Fair to Tristie Ebbert ( tristi@tds.net ).

"Great Central U.S. ShakeOut"

2011 ShakeOut: 10:15 a.m. on 28 April

Participate in the "Great Central U.S. ShakeOut" to practice how to protect yourself during earthquakes, and to get prepared.

http://www.shakeout.org/centralus/

http://www.cusec.org/

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3071/

NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE EXERCISE IN MAY

NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE EXERCISE: MAY 16 - 19
Please make sure that your organization has current contacts and resources listings in our TNVOAD Resource Directory. Contacts, please make sure you are prepared to give delivery times on your resources.

Please contact Rhonda Haight with questions and changes. rchaight@peoplepc.com

National Level Exercise 2011 Information VIA Our Partners:

May 16-20, 2011

Central US Earthquake Consortium

Get Ready to Shake Out at ShakeOut.org

The purpose of National Level Exercise 2011 (NLE 2011) is to prepare and coordinate a multiple-jurisdictional integrated response to a national catastrophic event – specifically a major earthquake in the central United States region of the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ).

NLE 2011 will involve thousands of government officials at the federal, state, local and tribal levels, members of the private sector, and the general public. Participants will conduct simultaneous, related exercise activities at command posts, emergency operation centers and other locations in the Washington D.C. area and the eight affected central U.S. states (Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee). The functional exercise will offer agencies and jurisdictions a way to validate their plans and skills in a real-time, realistic environment and to gain the in-depth knowledge that only experience can provide.

NLE 2011 is also an opportunity to continue to highlight to the public the need to be prepared for earthquakes, and specific steps they can take to be ready.

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Fact Sheets

• General Overview
• Private Sector Participation
• Participant's Guide for the 2011 National Level Exercises 400 Kb PDF

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Press Releases

Expected Participants for the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut Tops One Million

FEMA Urges Public To Be Prepared On Anniversary Of New Madrid Quake

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Training

As part of this exercise, FEMA's National Exercise Division (NED) and Emergency Management Institute (EMI) have developed a series of training programs to assist in preparing participants. This guide provides readers with an easy way to identify and access training information for participants at Federal Headquarters, Federal Regional Offices, State/Local/Tribal Offices, and Private Sector/NGOs.

• Training courses for the 2011 National Level Exercises 1.5 Mb PDF

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More Information About NLE

National Level Exercise 2011 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier I exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise Program (NEP), which serves as the nation’s overarching exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level exercises. The NEP was established to provide the U.S. government, at all levels, exercise opportunities to prepare for catastrophic crises ranging from terrorism to natural disasters.

This year - 2011 - is the bicentennial anniversary of the 1811 New Madrid earthquake, for which the NMSZ is named. NLE 2011 will be the first NLE to simulate a natural hazard.

NLE is led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), mandated by Congress, and directed by the White House. The states involved encompass four different FEMA regions: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee (FEMA Region IV); Illinois and Indiana (FEMA Region V); Arkansas (FEMA Region VI); and Missouri (FEMA Region VII).

New TN VOAD Web Site

http://tnvoad.squarespace.com

The temporary Domain Name (url) is tnvoad.squarespace.com, but the original "tnvoad.org" Domain Name will be retrieved and used soon.

Anyone wishing to post a news item, or photographs relating to a Tennessee disaster, disaster response, or TN VOAD Member Agency training, award, or social event, should contact: DisasterReliefTN@aol.com

THANKS !