News : BCEM addresses area Kiwanis Club

At Tuesday's Kiwanis Club meeting, Scott Hansen of Benton County Emergency Management spoke to the club concerning his role and how the closing of the Duane Arnold Energy Center will affect the budget. 

The program is overseen by Hansen who answers, he said to 16 bosses. Those bosses include every mayor in the county, the Sheriff and one member of the board of supervisors make up the commission that oversees the program, all elected officials. That is key, said Hansen when there is an event like the derecho on August 10. 

The number one goal of the department is to, make sure government is functioning and that they have the resources that they need. Hansen said, reiterated that his bosses are "the government."  Secondarily the concern is for the Individuals, families and households, under his jurisdiction. Generators were a large need for this last storm.

Hansen stepped into this job in 1999 and said that his first disaster that needed a presidential declaration was the ice storm in 2007. In that storm the power was out across the county, except in Vinton where we had our own generation which was a lifesaver. Since then many of the cities have purchased backup generators to provide power for their critical facilities like the water and sewage plants, as well as community shelters. That preparation helped a lot Hansen said in this last storm. 

Damage assessment is also a large part of his department's job for the presidential declaration process. For residents to qualify for assistance, there are forms that need to be filed and sent off as quickly as possible so that the damage can be recorded and sent off to the Governor's office so that assistance can be approved. Hansen said that there are per capita numbers that have to be met with uninsured or underinsured damages that would have to be carried by the government agencies. Hansen knew almost immediately that the burden that would be placed on these agencies would exceed the Benton County per capita number with debris removal alone. The County number was $104,000 and the state needs $4.3 million which too was easily met with the amount of damage the state received in Cedar Rapids, Story County and Des Moines.

In all of his years in this position, Hansen said that it was the quickest turn over for a Presidential declaration, beginning with the onset of the event until the time that the President signed the directive. That covered the public assistance. Individual assistance took a little longer to sort out Hansen said. 

As soon as an event like this occurs, there is a Benton County Disaster Recovery Coalition which consists of volunteers that represent different agencies that cover services for our county. That group met right away on Monday afternoon following the derecho and has been meeting every week since. The group is working to raise money which will be used after insurance and FEMA are exhausted. If there are still needs for residents, and those two sources of assistance have been used up, they can apply to the Coalition for assistance. There will be some fundraising events in the next few months to help provide these needs. 

Hansen said on days where nothing is happening, he's preparing for days when things happen. 

As part of his job, he maintains a relationship with the council members, mayors, EMS, First Responders, Fire, and Law Enforcement because these are the people who respond to events like the derecho. The role Hansen plays is to organize and coordinate. He does not control any of the city or county response, but advises them and helps to coordinate their responses.

Funding for BCEM for a large part has come from the Duane Arnold Energy Center.  DAEC was licensed to run through 2025. They provided power to Alliant Energy. Alliant Energy asked to renegotiate their contract with DAEC because they believe with natural gas, wind, and solar they no longer needed DAEC. That contract was renegotiated to close the power plant at the end of October. Then the storm hit the center taking out their cooling centers. As of last week all of the fuel has been moved out. 

The 10 mile emergency planning zone goes away in June of next year. There won't be any possibility of any off site accidents caused by the plant, with anything left on the DAEC site. This means that Benton County will no longer receive payments to help provide support for the plant. That will cause a deficit in the budget of the Benton County Emergency Management department. BCEM is required to continue to function as it has in the past, so Hansen is making cuts in any area that he can, but ultimately the burden will fall on the taxpayers to make up the difference. 

As a taxpayer, he doesn't want to do that. He explained that with the recent damage, there have been over 10 million dollars in damage that will be removed from the tax rolls so far and it's still changing. The 2011 storm was 10 million. 

As a follow-up, Hansen talked about communications following the storm. He talked about the importance of pen and paper after the derecho. Cellular service was down, the internet was down, phones were down, so they relied on a few ham radio operators in Belle Plaine and Shellsburg as well as driving out to see if some of the towns were still there following the storm. 

In general, you probably thought that Hansen's position as head of Benton County Emergency Management meant that he is the brains behind the major disaster recoveries, but he's also the one that keeps things running in case of smaller incidents. In cases where there might be a school bus accident, or an incident involving multiple injuries, his department is ready to roll with their mass casualty trailer to provide extra resources as well.