Police and firefighters aren’t alone at the scene when an emergency occurs in Grundy County: They have support in the form of communication, additional lighting and more from the volunteers Grundy County Emergency Management Agency.
All of this is done by a of dedicated group of volunteers who takes time from their personal lives to be on call for any emergencies and all trainings.
Ken Buck, a 15-year volunteer with the Grundy County EMA, said volunteers have three main roles to support the EMA, which, in turn, supports police, fire, municipalities and elected officials. The first is they staff the emergency operations center inside the Grundy County Administrative Center at 1320 Union St., including the radio room during severe weather. In the field, they provide services that include the mobile command post. This allows them to assist on fires, floods and law enforcement events.
“Then, we have portable lighting equipment, and we also do traffic control,” Buck said. “And the third thing is Joe [Schroeder] has gotten us ramped up on public education and public information.”
The volunteers don’t work only during severe storms and fires. They’re also on the job during winter storms, and this year’s late-January snowstorm that led to freezing temperatures left them on call for weeks thanks to the ice jams in the Kankakee River near Wilmington.
Schroeder, the director of the Grundy County EMA, said it was fortunate that the ice jams didn’t cause major problems.
“Back toward [Interstate] 55 near Wilmington, for that last stretch of a mile or mile and a half, it gets dicey,” Schroeder said. “When the ice starts moving, if it can’t push through, it’ll back up and flood our areas.”
A year and a half ago, we spent eight to 10 hours out there, right on Grundy County Line Road, because the power lines fell down. It’s a blizzard, but only for a mile or so. Then the fog that came off the cooling lakes compounded the situation out there, and then the fog turns to ice when it’s that cold. That moisture freezes and gets on the poles and the telephone lines and the wires. It complicates things even more.”
— Ken Buck, Grundy County EMA volunteer
Schroeder said the EMA educates many of the people who live in the area around Phelan Acres and Cottage Road near the Dresden Generating Station cooling lakes on preparedness, because living in that area has some quirks specific to that 11.54-square-mile section of land populated by many homes. The water in the cooling lakes at the nuclear power plant often can be quite a bit warmer than the air around it, creating heavy fog.
“A year and a half ago, we spent eight to 10 hours out there, right on Grundy County Line Road, because the power lines fell down,” Buck said. “It’s a blizzard, but only for a mile or so. Then the fog that came off the cooling lakes compounded the situation out there, and then the fog turns to ice when it’s that cold. That moisture freezes and gets on the poles and the telephone lines and the wires. It complicates things even more.”
Schroeder and Ricky Ortiz are paid full-time employees of Grundy County working in emergency management. Schroeder overseas the volunteers, and they’re both responsible for making sure they get their training and stay up to date on everything they need to know.
Jeff Jackson, who has been volunteering for five years, said that in the communications room, they have the public service side and the amateur radio side. When there’s severe weather, they rely on amateur spotters who go out and report back what they see.
Buck said he’s learned through weather service seminars that trained spotters on the ground often trump what radar will show because the radar is looking at a higher angle and much farther out.
“It’s really important to have spotters in place to validate what the radar is showing, or to make them question what they’re seeing on the forecast,” Buck said.
The volunteers all got involved because of various interests, as well as a desire to give back. Chris Noerper volunteered in Lake County for 10 years, and started volunteering with Grundy County when he moved there. For Noerper, he started doing traffic control, but they’ve all since learned other parts of the job.
Buck started volunteering in emergency management when he was living in Tinley Park and continued when he moved to Grundy County, and he tells people all the time that it’s something different. Working in emergency management is not a regular volunteering opportunity.
“Yes, we have our regularly scheduled meetings and our scheduled trainings, parades and 5Ks that are all scheduled, but we’re also on call 24/7,” Buck said. “You never know when the call is going to come out. In some respects, it’s a bit exciting, but it’s a lot different.”
It’s also giving back.
Marcy Schroeder, who has been volunteering for 14 years, said there’s a lot of training they have to keep up on yearly and bi-yearly, and it’s important to be really involved. That way it’s safer and everyone has each other’s backs.
Buck said there’s a lot of specific training related to nuclear power plants, and Joe Schroeder pointed out that Grundy County’s claim to fame is its three nuclear plants. Grundy County is the only county in the U.S. that has three emergency planning zones, and there’s a lot of exercises and drills just involving nuclear energy. The Grundy County EMA has to run six training exercises every two years, while most places run only one. One of the exercises has to be evaluated by the federal EMA.
It’s a lot of training, and Marcy Schroeder said it means that everywhere they go, Joe is Mr. Safety Auditor.
“He’s checking exits and just because of the way the world is nowadays, we’ve been doing active shooter trainings and things like that,” Marcy said. “You go into places and you look for ways out, and you just ask what I would do.”
Joe said working in emergency management trains the brain to have situational awareness at all times, and Buck said he has a lot more respect for police officers directing traffic when he’s being flagged by somebody. Joe joked that a lot of people indicate they’re No. 1 while managing traffic.
The Grundy County EMA is made up of 12 volunteers and three paid staff members, and it always can use more volunteers.
“We, in general, have a good time even in training and work, and every year we have our recognition dinners for years of service and potlucks and catered events,” Joe Schroeder said. “We invite families and spouses because we know we’re taking their time away from their family certain times of the year for many hours or sometimes days. We try to show we enjoy what we do.”
Buck said joining the EMA isn’t about individual preparedness, but it will make being prepared easier since there’s so much education and awareness around what’s going on. This means there’s less panic, and that puts less stress on the emergency response systems so those resources can be used for those who really need it. This can also be helped along by everyday people volunteering in their neighborhood by checking on neighbors and building a network of people in case of a large-scale event such as a tornado.
“Part of the public outreach and education is for those that have elderly neighbors and families to have that network of people so they’re not out on their own,” Joe Schroeder said. “They can be checked on, and collectively across the county we’ve had three classes that weren’t creating teams. It was just 40 people apiece going back to their own neighborhood, leaving in much better shape than they would have been.”
The Grundy County EMA has a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/GrundyCountyEMA, where it posts information on its training exercises and guidance for what to do to stay safe during emergencies. It also has an app for iPhones and Androids called Grundy County EMA, Illinois that can send notifications when the weather is turning and provide phone numbers for just about anyone residents could want to call with Grundy County. Grundy County residents also can report things such as storm and wind damage.
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