WSF Prepares for Major Disaster

Like other agencies, Washington State Ferries has had the elements of an emergency preparedness plan in place for several years. But the ferry system is in the process of improving the plan to make sure workers throughout the system are as well prepared as possible for natural emergencies. A big step forward has been taken with the completion of the new Emergency Management Plan (EMP) book, which details how the ferry system will react in an emergency and how it will coordinate with other agencies to provide assistance. The EMP becomes a chapter in the state Department of Transportation's overall plan for responding to emergencies. The EMP contains emergency-response procedures for ferry employees on the boats, at the terminals and in the central offices. Everything is covered, from relatively simple matters such as calling for medical help, to responding to a major disaster. Two key parts of the EMP are the creation of response teams and of an emergency operations center, says Dick Fife, who's working on the plan for Washington State Ferries. The teams, part of a program called Incident Command Systems, consist of ferry or terminal crews at the scene, along with a separate group, who set up a site near the emergency to coordinate response. These teams work with medical, police and fire crews, the Coast Guard and other agencies who also respond to the emergency. The emergency operations center is a unified (multiple agency) command center that is established in times of major emergencies. The center is immediately staffed to serve as a focal point of the ferry system's emergency response. "In a real emergency situation, a conference room at Colman Dock becomes the command center," says Fife. "That's something the ferry system has never had." The ferry system has been conducting drills to test the new emergency management plan and the command center concept. In late September, a drill will be conducted on a ferry to test response concepts. "It will be a realistic situation to see how effectively the command center can respond," explains Fife.