Dealing with emergencies
You are the Police Chief and your city has just experienced an F4 tornado. It struck following a sudden, severe thunderstorm in March—long before the traditional tornado season. Your city lies in a river valley and normally tornadoes hop over the valley, but because this storm came so early in the season, the tornado did not according to the normal pattern. It drove right down the center of the valley and, in doing so, caused a train derailment that may have caused a chemical spill. Roads in and out of town are closed. Traversing around the city is impossible and the normal communication infrastructure is compromised.
How do you triage this situation? What is your priority? What organizations do you know you must immediately contact?
How do you discern the danger and magnitude of the chemical spill? What precautions must personnel take as they approach the scene? What organization do you turn to for help?
How do you decide if an evacuation of the area immediately surrounding the train derailment is necessary? How would you facilitate an evacuation?
What response do you give to the media?
What resources do you request from neighboring communities? From the state?
How do you deal with volunteers from neighboring communities? How do you differentiate a volunteer from a looter?
When you have completed the assignment, save your document and then submit a copy to your instructor Bright space. The document should be a Word document (*.doc or docx), a PDF or RTF file.
