Volunteering is key to Endicott's emergency management plan

Jana Mathia, Gazette Reporter | Mar 22, 20180

The town of Endicott is working on an emergency management plan to help coordinate town efforts in the event of a disaster.

“We have very limited resources in this town,” said Fred Tribble who was appointed by the town council to lead the effort. Tribble has a long history with emergency management. For about 16 years he was a government liaison for the California National Guard to help coordinate National Guard response in the event of emergencies. He has been a volunteer with American Red Cross since 1985 and active in responding to disasters from Hurricane Katrina to Harvey.

Tribble is now serving as pastor of Endicott Community Bible Church.

“During all those years I picked up a thing or two,” he said.

One of the biggest things he has learned has to do with the culture in the community even before a disaster hits.

“Small towns think they have no ability to serve, but they have tremendous capabilities,” he said.

Part of Tribble’s role is to convince residents they have more capabilities and resources than they realize. He drew from the example of a small town in New Zealand near Christchurch. In the aftermath of the massive earthquake a few years back, the small town recovered in half the time the larger city did. This was attributed to the town’s culture of service and time-banking.

Time-banking is where individuals provide services from cooking and cleaning to carpentry and landscaping, document their hours and barter those services with one another through the time bank; one hour of cleaning for an hour of cooking and such. Since the small town already had the time-banking in place, it was just a matter of continuing that practice to rebuild the town.

Tribble noted there are about eight towns in Eastern Washington using the time-banking. Only a dozen or so people in each case may be active, it is a start to grow from. Tribble pointed out in the case of a disaster, the small towns need that culture of being willing to help one another which is something anyone can do in some regard.

While Tribble works to increase awareness to build that culture of caring for neighbors, he already has a draft of the town’s emergency management plan. For about nine months he has been working with town officials on the plan which may take a couple of years to finalize.

The council adopted the national emergency management standards found in the National Incident Management System (NIMS), the National Response Framework and the National Disaster Recovery Framework. Tribble was tasked with bringing the town into full compliance with all federal, state and local emergency management laws and regulations. He has been working with Robin Cocking, Whitman County emergency management deputy director, on the plan which focuses more on coordinating government services.

“This is an evolving process,” he said.

The plan’s primary players are the town, school and county. The plan will have to be agreed upon by all three entities. Tribble has worked on the town’s end and will soon approach the school to have it weigh in. When ready, he will officially present it to the school’s superintendent to look over and reply to what the school can or cannot do and why, then return it to him to make the necessary corrections. Once the plan works for the school, it will be presented to the school board to sign off on.

After that, he will take the plan to the county for its approval. Throughout the process Tribble plans to maintain contact with the county to be current on emergency management policies so it should not take much to come into line with the county. Cocking was a lead in hammering out Whitman County’s emergency management plan which the Endicott plan is based on.

After the plan is finalized and signed off on by all parties, there will be annexes added in regard to how the churches, organizations and individuals can assist in emergency response.

Tribble noted that Endicott has vulnerabilities with its reliance on the road and rail networks for receiving resources, so having the plan in place is important. But even more so is that habit of neighbors helping neighbors. Anything the community can do to encourage that behavior beforehand is better for when an emergency does occur, he added. The community comes away better and with more friendships, realizing its vulnerabilities, but also strengths.

In the event a disaster occurs, the town’s mayor would be chief executive, and Tribble would act as the “chief of staff” to manage the emergency services and responses. Towns lacking someone with emergency management experience just need to take the initiative to find someone who can help get a plan in place.

“This is all about volunteering,” Tribble said. Emergency management training and materials are available through Whitman County Emergency Services. Tribble also noted there is a FEMA school, the Emergency Management Institute, which provides all the training a person would need at very little cost. There are also classes available on-line for the training. He encouraged every citizen to go through the NIMS.