Imagine for a moment a rumbling in the distance. Wood walls creak as the ground swells like a wave. An earthquake hits the city of Cottonwood Heights. Power lines fall; asphalt cracks destroy roadways; water lines burst; communication devices fade to black. Sirens blare in the distance. First responders are miles away and won’t be near anytime soon. 

Such scenarios where neighborhood emergency response teams are likely to be overwhelmed are of shared concern across municipalities within the state. In response, Salt Lake County has adopted a federal approach to prepare for a large-scale emergency. Based on National Incident Management System (NIMS) tenets, the regional incident command system relies on multi-agency coordination group (MAC) utilizing emergency operations centers (EOC). 

“I value this partnership,” said Cottonwood Heights Police (CHPD) Assistant Chief Paul Brenneman. “When I started, everyone was doing their own thing. Since the county stepped up about seven years ago, they have…paid big money to coordinate their efforts. Our interests are now annexed into the county’s plan. We are not alone in this.” 

Brenneman referenced the city council’s passing of Ordinance 415: Adopting a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan back on April 16. 

As part of their annual training, Salt Lake County’s Emergency Management Director Tara Behunin visited the Cottonwood Heights City Council on Oct. 15. She joined Brenneman and Unified Fire Authority (UFA) Assistant Chief Riley Pilgrim to walk the council through their goals and response plans. 

The main goal of the multi-agency coordinated (MAC) response plan is to work together to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond and recover from incident effects. In an emergency event, they would all work together to cross-communicate and disperse agency resources. 

“What we do is coordinate,” Behunin said leading into reviewing the tenets of NIMS.

The major components, or main tenets, outlined through NIMS are resource management, command and coordination, and communication and information management. The focus being on the three C’s: communication, collaboration and coordination. 

“If emergency managers could have tattoos  it would probably be the three C’s,” Behunin laughed.  

When/if an incident (an unplanned event that requires response actions to prevent or minimize loss of life) occurs, it’s up to the city responders to assess first. Daily incidents should be handled by localized municipalities all on their own. If local government municipalities working along with private sector organizations get overwhelmed, then Salt Lake County tag teams throughout various boundaries provide support. If the county-level gets overwhelmed, then they go to the state government to call in UDOT and the National Guard for support.  

“Once it becomes a significant event, we are getting federally declared disasters like the riots in 2020,” Behunin said. 

In Cottonwood Heights, the city manager is chief command of the city. They would be in charge or exchanging coordination efforts to provide the community a sense of assurance and effectively get back to normal as quickly as possible. 

“If it starts local, then the control stays local until we advocate to someone else,” Brenneman explained. 

However, if Cottonwood Heights were to declare an emergency under the city manager’s prevue, the county would start resourcing supplies for things like fuel and food through local outlets. This would fall to a Unified Command which would suggest the city has equal ownership, mission, and resources as the sister cities and UDOT coming together. 

Pilgrim explained that in a significant event Unified Command would bring together all entities with interest and responsibility together dynamically to respond. The Incident Commander would ultimately be in charge but could delegate command when needed. Under which, the chief elected officials would have their local authority. 

“This coordination brings all partners to the table to collaborate on everything including the communication going out,” Pilgrim said. 

Behunin asked the councilmembers what their key role(s) would be in responding to such an incident. Councilmember Suzanne Hyland mentioned the benefits of the local jurisdiction knowing how their own infrastructure is laid out. 

“I think a lot of residents know the needs of other residents for example knowing someone who is not physically able where the need assistance,” said Councilmember Shawn Newell.

“I see my role as communicating to the public and managing any panic,” said Councilmember Ellen Birrell. 

Pilgrim explained what the process would be for gathering essentially information and how important it would be for the councilmembers to follow the communication guidance. Through the joint-information system, all of the public information officers (PIOs) would monitor, gather and vet information across all of the levels. They would then disseminate common messaging to ensure everyone was sharing the same information. 

“We are careful with what we communicate when, and how much we share,” Pilgrim said. “We don’t want another incident within an incident that takes away from getting back to normal.” 

Behunin recommended that each of the councilmembers be familiar with the city’s emergency management plan. City hazards within each of the individual districts should be known, along with the capabilities and restrictions those hazards present. 

“Being here and having this discussion shows that you are interested in planning for preparedness to best recover when needed. Invest in an emergency manager and in their training,” Behunin recommended. 

Brenneman took the opportunity to review where the city is currently lacking within their own emergency response plan and asked for the city council to consider some additional elements to plan and budget for. 

“There’s no place within the city to stage debris in an emergency. We can’t just take it to the dump,” Brenneman said. 

He explained the anticipated debris from an emergency incident within the city community alone would near the size of a Brighton High School footprint.  

Behunin recounted that the windstorm in 2020 alone presented challenges for debris removal at even the county level. They had to coordinate between Weber, Davis and Salt Lake counties. 

The CHPD is also working to coordinate agreements with the local schools and churches to have contracts to provide short-term shelters in the event of necessary evacuations. These facilities could only be used as short-term shelters as they don’t provide hygiene needs, like showers, and they wouldn’t want their day-to-day operations to be disrupted.

“We don’t have a mass messaging system,” Brenneman added. “These are programs that can blast out to cell phones. I would like to push for that,”

He explained that in an event where power and communication lines go down, there’s minimal ways for communications to reach residents. Reverse 911 would only work minimally because it requires either a landline or for the cell phone to be registered with VECC (Valley Emergency Communications Center). 

Brenneman recounted that the average buy-in for these mass-communication programs (which would work by identified cell phone towers in the area that can get messaging out), is around $30,000 of initial investment with additional annual costs.