City of Minneapolis Preplanning

Since 2002, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Minneapolis has been taking action to ensure the best possible response to any catastrophic event.  In a presentation compiled by Rocco Forte and delivered to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's annual Air, Water, and Waste Environmental Conference, a City of Minneapolis presenter provided details of the city's preplanning work prior to the bridge collapse. The foundation of the process was attendance by representatives of the city and surrounding community at an Integrated Emergency Management Course in Mount Weather, Virginia. During this course, numerous disaster scenarios were practiced including chemical release, terrorist attack, structure collapse, and others. A major part of the course involved identifying shortcomings, and for Minneapolis these were Communications, Dispatch, Structure Collapse & Hazardous Materials readiness, Water Infrastructure security, discontinuous local planning, shortage of PPE (personal protective equipment) for responders, and City Hall security. Having identified these, the City was able to address each of them by creating new plans and using federal grants and other resources for the material needs. An important part of this planning was clarification (and in some cases new development) of a regional system of Mutual Aid Partners - responders from surrounding communities who could coordinate rapidly and know when to stage resources locally versus rush to the scene of any event. These plans were called in to action in August 2007 with the collapse of the I-35W bridge. The federal government made a Category B Disaster Declaration, making it easier for the bureaucratic elements of various agencies to free resources and enable enhanced coordination. Major successes derived from the preplanning efforts were identified as the immediate opening by City of Minneapolis responders of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in coordination with the National Incident Management System (NIMS), and the efficient, coordinated, informed response of Mutual Aid Partners (Forte, 2008). The presenter standing in for Mr. Forte made it very clear that although this precise scenario was not among those practiced at Mount Weather, the response was dramatically more effective as a result of that course of assessment and subsequent planning. An unnamed city official later in the day referred to the entire cooperative operation as "a jewel of a response".

See Also:

Vehicles involved in the collapse

Chronology of I-35W Bridge collapse

References:

1. Environmental Checks Near the Site.City of Minneapolis. Retrieved 3.9.08

2. Environmental Response to the I-35W Bridge Collapse.  Mississippi Watershed Management Organization. Retrieved 3.9.08

3. Interstate 35W Bridge Rebuild - Environmental Review. Minnesota Department of Transportation. Retrieved 3.9.08

4. Olson, J. More I-35W Bridge Info: MPCA Conference. Emerging Technologies in STC  3.2.08.  (*note - should be replaced by actual presentations, expected availabllity - late March '08)

5. Interstate 35W Bridge Collapse. Minnesota Department of Transportation. Retrieved 3.9.08

6. Air Monitoring City of Minneapolis. Retrieved 3.9.08

Page editor Jim O.