Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Nextel Network Performance Report-Milan, MI- BLACKOUT

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 16:10:56 -0400

Nextel Network Performance Report-
Date Reported: 9/25/2003
Location: Milan, MI
Reported By: Milan Police Chief \The Saline Reporter\ The Milan-News Leader
Problem: BLACKOUT
http://members.fortunecity.com/marcelrf/

The Saline Reporter
The Milan-News Leader
Sharing Information - Heritage
Newspapers

City evaluates blackout response
By Kym Boelter-Muckler, Special Writer

Like a chain—an emergency plan is only as strong as its weakest link. The trick is
knowing which link is the weakest ahead of time.

The city experienced the opportunity to test its emergency plan on Aug. 14 when at
4:11 p.m. the entire city, along with eight states and part of Canada, experienced
a blackout.
In the weeks since the blackout top city officials worked on a comprehensive
report to locate areas that could be improved for future emergencies.

According to the report, during the 26 hours that the city had no electricity,
there were a total of 33 employees on the job keeping the city going.

Also—the city ran up expenses in excess of $3400 for fuel and supplies. In
addition those 33 employees worked 178 hours of regular time and 182 hours of
overtime pay.
Furthermore, it was revealed that even though the power outage suspended many of
the city departments housed in City Hall—the employees that worked during the
crisis gave a top-notch performance, according to City Administrator Mike Czymbor.

"Those employees performed exemplary and are to be commended," he said.
A few of the weak links included communication between the Police Department and
Department of Public Works.

"The predominant form of the current communication is our Nextel phone system
which also has a 2-way system, but it relies on cellular towers to relay
signals—those signals lost power during the outage and made communications between
city departments difficult," Milan Police Chief Mike Stuck said.

Several city facilities are currently without a backup power source that required
them to close—this made it difficult for residents to communicate with the city
for vital information.

"You try to plan for every contingency and until you have an event—you just don’t
know where you need to improve." Mayor David Ludwig opined.
The city also found that it had a limited supply of fuel to run generators,
vehicles and equipment.

"We have generators to operate the water and sewer facilities and the police
department and several portable generators to run other essential pieces of
equipment," DPW Director Todd Knepper said.  "But we have few storage tanks for
gasoline and diesel fuel."

As a result of the black-out debriefing, the city is planning a through review of
the feasibility of formulating and adopting some new policy and procedures.
Mayor Ludwig indicated that some of the recommended changes could be costly, at
Monday night’s city work session.

"Some of these things will have to be considered at budget time," Ludwig said.
"The smaller expenses could be looked at the current budget if the money is
available in line-items."

The city and the Milan School District have been discussing the possibility of
sharing the cost for diesel fuel storage.

"It is important that we remember that cities rarely experience a complete
blackout of the magnitude we experienced last month," Mayor Ludwig declared. "In a
way we were fortunate that we had the opportunity to locate these problems before
we were befallen by a more severe disaster."

http://www.salinereporter.com/news/20030925N02FKBM.asp?ID=132

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