What if Wednesday's tornado had hit Catawba County?

Eastern Burke County was rocked Wednesday night when a tornado ripped through the area. The tornado’s winds were whipping at 115 miles per hour. Five people were injured and the storm caused an estimated $13.4 million in damages.

What would have happened if that black funnel cloud had tracked just a few miles to the east and put down in Catawba County? Would Catawba County’s Emergency Management department have been ready to leap into action?

Its response to Wednesday’s tornado would indicate that it is. When Burke County officials sounded the call for mutual aid, Catawba County Emergency Management was quick to respond.

It sent two ambulances, three quick response vehicles, a pair of emergency staffers and the Hickory Rescue Squad responded with its heavy rescue unit to assist Burke County with its tornado response. In all, Catawba County sent 17 emergency personnel.

Catawba County Emergency Services Director Bryan Blanton faced the challenge of responding to a pair of tornadoes that touched down in Claremont and Vale on Oct. 26, 2010.

The choices made in the first few minutes of a potential disaster have a lot to do with the efficacy of the overall response, he said, adding that his Burke County counterparts made the right decisions in the aftermath of Wednesday’s tornado.

“They established a command structure and got all of the decision makers to the same place, and they requested additional assistance early on,” said Blanton. “Early on, they didn’t know exactly what they needed, but they asked early.”

Catawba County Emergency Management Coordinator Karyn Yaussy was on the scene with the Burke County response crews and said they did the right things.

“The leaders were calm and coordinated in their thinking and they made good decisions – you can’t ask for much better than that,” Yaussy said. “This hit us after the sun went down, which is a horrendous time for an emergency.”

The emergency response must be flexible enough to deal with unforeseen eventualities.

“It looks like chaos and in a lot of ways it is – but there’s a structure to it – although it may not look like that to a passerby,” Yaussy said.

Catawba County has a designated contact person on call at all times. The on-call designation is rotated among five staffers each of whom will serve as the point of contact in the event of an emergency.

“Communications calls us and notifies us that there’s been a tornado. Based on where it touched down, we determine which agencies are in the area and may need assistance,” said Blanton. “Our job is to serve the first responders and find out from the 911 coordinator where the bulk of the calls are coming from.”

Generally, Emergency Management will send one person to the Emergency Operations Center and another to the staging area or the incident command post.

In 2011, the county’s EOC was activated roughly six times – the same amount of times as in the previous year.

The EOC is also activated twice a year during multi-agency simulations during which staffers respond to mock emergencies and coordinate the efforts of the participating agencies.

Emergency Management also does smaller scale scenarios involving its staff four times a year.

Trust is an important element that must be established between medical, volunteers, rescue squads and town managers – and it needs to be established well before an emergency.

One of the key relationships during a disaster scenario is between the media and the emergency responders.

“The media can be our eyes and ears on the ground – you may have an awareness of things that may have been missed,” Yaussy said. “We also want to make sure the right information gets out there so the public can utilize it.”