The Westfield Emergency Management Office worked with purchasing earlier this year to seek options to the City's Emergency Notification System.  The Emergency Notification System can notify citizens via email and phone within minutes in the event of an emergency within the City.  The ability to quickly alert citizens could be critical to saving lives if a major situation was to occur.

The previous vendor was Everbridge/3N and has been changed to Rapid Notify.   Everbridge had an excellent system and provided great service to the City.    The Everbridge contract was up for renewal and the Director felt it may be the perfect time to review what other companies could offer.   The criteria for the search by the Director was for a system that offered more versatility, had excellent customer reviews, and was more economical.   After reviewing multiple vendors, the decision was made to choose Rapid Notify to provide a service to the City for the next three years.  The new system is up and operational and residents are being requested to register for notification.  The City will do four tests per year and will use the system for Emergencies or Instant notifications only.  If you wish to register, go to the Notification System tab on the WEMA website.

The City of Westfield Emergency Management Agency was chosen to receive a $17k Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA).  The grant is issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  The purpose of the grant is to provide the Emergency Management Agencies with funds to enhance their operations and capabilities.  The City of Westfield will be purchasing radio equipment which will position the agency to be able to support emergency responders in the event of an emergency.  The need to have interoperability amongst all emergency responders is critical to saving property and lives.  

 In addition to radio equipment, the agency will be purchasing a portable generator, antennaes, etc which will enable the interoperability radios to be utilized in a field command site if the need arises.   This will provide Westfield with a capability to ensure that we can communicate from anywhere within the City and establish an on scene command center if necessary.  Westfield Emergency Management will provide training to staff in both the Police and Fire Department on the use of the new equipment to ensure that communications could be done around the clock if the need arises.    This capability places Westfield in a better position to respond to emergencies, ensure that all departments, and supporting agencies can communicate with each other at all times.

Members of the Westfield Emergency Management Communications section participated in a American and Canadian emergency communications drill over a twenty-four hour period on June 26th and 27th.  Sponsored by the American Radio Relay League, the annual drill known as the ARRL Field Day, involves thousands of Amateur Radio Operators (Ham Radio) from North America.

The WEMA Communications members demonstrated the ability to communicate over a vast area in the event of an emergency.  The radio operators succeeded in making hundreds of contacts with forty-eight defined States, Provinces or areas (colored areas in the map).  The group, consisting of three amateur radio operators leveraged the amateur radio equipment available at the Westfield Emergency Operations Center and a variety of amateur frequencies to make these contacts.  The areas not contacted could easily have been communicated with relay stations if needed during an emergency.

The Westfield Technology Center and Westfield Emergency Management will be hosting an Open House at our facilities.

The Open House is on Wednesday, June 23^rd from 4:00pm until 7:00pm.  It is open to the public.

Please see the attached flyer for additional details.

The City of Westfield has conducted two of three exercises with Westfield State College to test our response to a major emergency at the College.  The Scenario is that there is an explosion in the Laboratory of one of the buildings, and there are several victims that must be treated for injuries.   A tabletop exercise was held in October 2009 with attendance from the Westfield Police, Westfield Fire, Westfield Emergency Management, Massachusetts State Police, Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, Medical Reserve Corps, and Noble Hospital.

The Westfield Public Schools had several individuals attend as observers so they could understand how they may operate and the challenges we may face if a similar incident were to occur at a school.  Westfield State College established a Command Center to address issues that the college must respond to.   In addition, they provided a representative to be in the Incident Command Center, and the exercise enabled individuals to test their skills in responding and working with others in an Incident Command Structure.

During the functional exercise, the focus was on the flow of information between the college and the Incident Command Table and between the Incident Command Center and the Emergency Personnel who would be on site.   After each exercise, a discussion was held on lessons learned and this information is used to build the After Action Report (AAR) and will be the guide to use to develop the plans for the full scale exercise scheduled for May 2010.