Lincoln County (LincUP) Community Advisory Panel

LincUPLincUP provides open dialogue on health, safety and environmental issues between representatives of the community and Union Pacific Railroad to promote awareness and understanding for mutual benefit. For a complete listing of members, see 2008 LincUP Panelists.

Questions? Comments?

Contact the LincUP Facilitator, Lorre McKeone.

Minutes of Meeting: April 28, 2008

Present: Sue Buhlig, Terri Burchell, Denis Corcoran, Rich Hoaglund, Edward Joel, Bob Lantis, Terry McCarty, Bob Morrison, Jeff Nichols,   Jim Nitz, Jean Pavlik, Keith Richardson, Steve Schad, Brian Shay, Nancy Striebel, Steve VanBoening, Chad Wilbourn, Bob Wilkinson.  Guests: Deb Blondin. 

Absent: Mataya Belka, Jack Campbell, Scot Cockson, Lisa Cox, Jim Hawks, Kim Keeling, Tom Pendleton, Michelle Settles, Chris Sommer, Scott Tatman, Marla Thompson, Glynn Wolar.

Facilitator: Lorre McKeone

Public Comment Period

Teresa McArtor, a UP employee, shared information about community emergency response plans that are in the Cedar Rapids phone book and suggested that this may be something that would be helpful in our local phone books.  The facilitator will make copies of the relevant pages for the panel.

Announcements

The facilitator has conflicts with the scheduled meeting dates in September and October and asked if the group would be agreeable to a different meeting night those months.  She will send an e-mail message to members to determine the best alternative meeting dates.

Community Roundtable

Jim Nitz announced that in August the Department of Energy will conduct a community-wide drill in North Platte.  The exercise will work with responders on a staged highway incident resulting in a low-level radiation release.  The hospital will practice their response to exposure, transport and decontamination issues.  Emergency response personnel from the state and from Scottsbluff will also be involved.  Brian Shay invited the panel to a free picnic at Station 3 on West 2nd Street during the afternoon on May 24 to celebrate EMS Week.  A Good Samaritan Hospital helicopter will be on hand.  Firefighters will demonstrate fire training and Operation Lifesaver will be provide safety information.

UP Report

Denis Corcoran reported on strong first quarter earnings.  Freight volume is up 11 percent in 2008.  Fuel costs have increased 47 percent.  Strongest revenue sources in the first quarter were agriculture, coal and intermodal traffic.  In terms of safety, the level of personal injuries is unchanged, human factor derailments are down. 

Bob Morrison reported no car-train incidents in the past month. 

Terry McCarty said that 24 fans, each 16 feet in diameter, have been installed to help circulate heat in the winter and cool the Diesel Shop in the summer.  In the event of a chemical emergency, protocol is for all ventilation and fans to be immediately shut down.  Two new fall protection devices have been acquired for use on the top of locomotives.  Training currently being conducted at the Diesel Shop includes new hire classes, lock out tag out training and tornado drills.  The safety index stands at .90 accidents per 200,000 man hours.

Meeting Topic:

Severe weather preparedness and warnings, Deb Blondin (Warning Coordination Meteorologist, National Weather Service)

Deb has been with the National Weather Service 16 years (nine in North Platte).  She gave a brief history of the National Weather Service in North Platte which employs 22 people and serves a 26-county area in west central Nebraska.  This office provides services in the following areas

  • Public: Real-time weather information and forecasts.
  • Fire weather: for controlled burns and to assist fire fighters responding to emergencies.
  • Aviation: Route forecasts and terminal forecasts for weather at each airport.
  • Hydrologic: Flash flood and river warnings.
  • Severe Weather: Severe thunderstorm, tornado and flash flood warnings.
  • Air Quality: Ozone modeling on the web site.
  • HazMat: Support for hazmat incidents.

Area weather information is available 24/7 on the NOAA web site – www.weather.gov/northplatte - which reports current conditions, forecasts, radar imagery, watches, warnings and advisories for any location in the country.  Emergency information is broadcast over all-hazard radios.  An alarm sounds, followed by instructions of the recommended response.  These radios act as your own personal weather sirens and are the fastest way to alert large sections of the population to emergency situations.  NOAA radios can be programmed to set off the alarm only for specific counties or certain events.  In addition to weather alerts, the radios disseminate many non-weather emergency messages including warning regarding child abductions, civil dangers, earthquakes, evacuations, fires, hazardous materials incidents, law enforcement, shelter in place and 911 telephone outages.  The National Weather Service also supplies hazmat support in the event of large scale events (like explosions, hazardous spills and nuclear releases), predicting likely plumes given wind direction and wind speed.

This agency also seeks to educate citizens about weather safety procedures:

Tornado Safety:

  • Mobile homes are not safe in a tornado.  Tie downs can fail.  Take cover in a reinforced shelter.
  • In public buildings - stay out of large expanse areas.  Put as many walls between you and the tornado as possible.  Hallways are good unless there are glass doors at the end of the hall. 
  • In homes – take shelter in an interior bathroom or closet in the lowest level.  Sheltering under a stairwell or sturdy furniture can protect you from falling debris.  Stay away from windows.  Some homeowners are installing hardened safe rooms made of reinforced cinder blocks or pre-fab storm shelters.
  • Vehicles – Do not try to outrun a tornado.  Find a reinforced shelter.  As a last resort, get out of your vehicle and lie flat in a ditch or ravine.  Overpasses are not a safe place of shelter due to high winds.

Flooding Safety:

  • Water is very forceful. Don’t try to drive through running water.  It only takes six inches of moving water to wash away people and just two feet of moving water to wash away vehicles.

 Severe Thunderstorms and Lightning:

  • With severe thunderstorms can come damaging hail and over 100 mph winds which are the equivalent of a F-1 tornado.  Take shelter immediately.
  • Lightning is the biggest storm threat.  Stay inside.  A hard top vehicle is safe as long as you don’t touch anything made of metal inside the vehicle.  Lightning can come into a home through electric lines or plumbing so don’t use a corded phone or take a bath during thunderstorms.  In most years, lightning kills more people than tornadoes.  Thunderstorms are a result of moisture, instability and lift.  Southeast winds produce the most unstable conditions. Most thunderstorms develop in late afternoon.  Deb shared pictures of different types of clouds that indicate likely violent storms or tornados.

In response to questions Deb provided the following additional information:

  • The decision to broadcast an emergency warning is made by the local emergency management director.  As soon as emergency weather or hazard information is available, the National Weather Service is contacted and alert information is immediately sent out on NOAA radios and the web site. 
  • The county is looking into reverse 911 systems.  Keith County has a system that sends out messages via phones but is limited to 5,000 in an hour.  The North Platte School District has this system in place and uses it for school cancellations or other emergencies.

Committees:

Members met in committees. The following reports were made from each committee:

  • Membership: Representatives for Parents and Government are being replaced due to excessive absences.  The facilitator will follow up on committee recommendations for replacements.
  • Planning: In May, Jim Nitz will lead a Table Top Exercise and discuss shelter-in-place.  No June meeting.  Steve will coordinate a tour of Bailey Yard planned in July. The group liked the central meeting room and asked if it could be used again in the future.  The facilitator will check availability.
  • Outreach: Brian Shay said that the Fire Department could distribute LincUP fliers and shelter in place information during EMS week and at various other events.  The committee asked about purchasing Emergency Wheels for distribution.  Jim Nitz will check costs.  The committee also recommended having the LincUP booth at Railfest near the concessions where people could watch the video while standing in line. Lorre will check on this possibility.

Summary and Strategy

Next meeting: 5:15 p.m. Monday, Monday, May 19, 2008

Location: McKinley Education Center – Central Meeting Room (Come in the south doors by the flag pole)
Meeting Topic: Jim Nitz (Lincoln County Emergency Management Director) will lead the group in a Tabletop Drill

Agenda

NOTE: Future meeting dates have been changed to Tuesday, September 23, and Tuesday, October 28.