I was not made aware of the meeting, but here is a press release about it from the Emergency Management Office.
APALACHICOLA—A meeting of the Franklin County Commissioners was held at 10:00 AM today, May 12, 2010, at the Franklin County Court Annex to discuss the Area Contingency Plan (ACP) as well as the Local Contingency Plan (LCP) with Lieutenant Steve Caske of the United States Coast Guard giving the presentation. Also present were several Gulf County Commissioners, as well as the members of the media and the general public. The “Big Picture” was the thrust of the presentation. Explanations as to the make up of the Unified Command in Mobile, Ala. down to the local county Emergency Operations Center (EOC). The Unified Command has twenty (20) incident commanders and operate under the (FLOP) methodology.
This is defined under the following categories: Finance, Logistics, Operations and Planning. The sequence begins with Planning, and then moves to Operations, then Logistics, and finally Finance. As Lieutenant Steve Caske said, “ be assured that this is a unified effort from top to bottom, we are in this together”.
Initial staging areas have been established for Gulf and Franklin Counties. These are the fishery at Port St. Joe and the area adjacent to the Apalachicola River in Apalachicola. An alternative location is being considered for the Carrabelle area.
The Coast Guard strategy is defined under a Prevention Strategy first, then a Recovery Strategy. The Prevention Strategy is a two tier system. The first is Tier #1 which is called “off shore” or “beach” boom. This is where booms are placed to prevent any material from entering the bays or estuaries . These are the major areas that have been defined by the State EOC plan. These will be deployed immediately. Tier #2 are the areas that the county has defined as highest priority to protect our defined resources. Grass beds, etc. are part of this. These will be deployed after the Tier #1 booms are in place. Tier #1 booms will be deployed by contractors under the guidance of bp. They will be working in partnership the Coast Guard. The Tier #2 booms will basically be placed by locals involved in the “Vessels of Opportunity” (VOO). Once deployed, there will be daily over flights to confirm that the booms are in their proper places. If not, a team of “hot shots” in the proper boats will be sent to repair them.
Lee McRae, the bp community outreach lead, discussed briefly the requirements for being in the vessel of opportunity (VOO). It is essentially a three step program. Step #1 is to participate in a local orientation/training session. Step #2 is to register the proposed vessel for evaluation. Franklin county residents will be given first priority. Step #3 is to sign a contractual letter of agreement. There will be a training session from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM, Sunday May 16, 2010 at the armory in Apalachicola.
Also on Sunday May 16, 2010 at 7:00 PM there will be a meeting in the courthouse annex for all Captains for questions on the “Vessel Of Opportunity Program” (VOO) primarily dealing with vessel inspection requirements.
The revised Boom Protection Strategy Plan or Contingency Plan that was resubmitted to the state EOC on May 11, 2010 has been approved except for the financing.
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