Public Safety News Montgomery County Department of Public Safety

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Public Safety News Department of Public Safety DECEMBER 23, 2016 VOLUME 15, NUMBER 12 Department of Public Safety 610-631-6500 Thomas Sullivan Director John Corcoran Deputy Director, External Affairs

org CAD Helpline: 610-631-3001 Operation Thunderbolt More than 80 first responders, most of whom were volunteers, came out to participate in Operation Thunderbolt, a training exercise that lasted

1 Public Safety News Department of Public Safety DECEMBER 23, 2016 VOLUME 15, NUMBER 12 Department of Public Safety Thomas Sullivan Director John Corcoran Deputy Director, External Affairs Public Safety Training Campus EMS Training Institute Website: org CAD Helpline: Operation Thunderbolt More than 80 first responders, most of whom were volunteers, came out to participate in Operation Thunderbolt, a training exercise that lasted over twelve hours Friday, Dec. 2 nd into Saturday, Dec. 3 rd. The purpose of the exercise was to have specialized units that have been formed to respond to large-scale events practice and test their abilities to work together under highly stressful circumstances. Participants were paged to respond at 6 p.m. Friday, after most had already worked a full day, and over the next 12 hours they were paired together to respond to seven scenarios. The scenarios ranged from a leaking propane storage tank, a high-angle rescue, a 55-gallon drum leaking a caustic and toxic material, a building fire with a person trapped, a building collapse with four people trapped, a railcar leaking chlorine and an motor vehicle accident with two victims trapped and unconscious in vehicles that were below grade. The building collapse scenario alone took three hours and involved cutting through concrete in a confined space and some scenarios were occurring simultaneously. Needless to say, there was very little down time. The Department of Public Safety would like to express its appreciation to everyone who took part, including members of the Fire Task Force, which was divided into two teams, the Norriton Fire Engine Company, Montgomery County s Hazardous Materials Incident Response Team (HAZMAT), Urban Search and Rescue Team (USAR) and Incident Support Team (IST), the Office of Emergency Management, the Emergency Communications division and the Public Safety Training Campus. (Fire Task Force A was composed of units from the Norristown, Plymouth, Norriton and Edge Hill fire companies. Fire Task Force B was composed of units from the Limerick, Stowe and Perseverance-Souderton fire companies.) We would especially like to thank Jim Staufenberg, who is a member of both the USAR and IST teams. Jim was the primary force behind the conception, design and implementation of the exercise and without his untiring efforts Operation Thunderbolt would not have happened.

Training Exercise With PJM Interconnection A tabletop exercise to help prepare for potential threats to the electric grid was held last week with about 70 participants from PJM Interconnection and

2 Training Exercise With PJM Interconnection A tabletop exercise to help prepare for potential threats to the electric grid was held last week with about 70 participants from PJM Interconnection and local, county, state and federal first responders, Participants held detailed scenario-based discussions about their abilities and procedures for interoperable communications, intelligence and information sharing and to identify potential gaps that need to be addressed. The exercise was hosted by PJM and the Governor s Office of Homeland Security (GOHS) at PJM s facilities. PJM Interconnection is a regional organization that facilitates the wholesale electricity market and transmission of energy among all or parts of 13 states and District of Columbia along the east coast. Participants included representatives of Lower Providence Emergency Management, Police, Fire and EMS, Norristown Police, Conshohocken Police, the Department of Public Safety, Incident Support Team, Montgomery County Urban Search and Rescue, HAZMAT Team, Southeast Pennsylvania Regional Task Force, the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center, the Pennsylvania State Police, PEMA, the FBI, Philadelphia Joint Terrorism Task Force and federal Department of Homeland Security. 14 th Annual Command Officers Seminar The 14th Annual Command Officers Seminar will be held on Saturday, January 28, 2017 beginning at 8:30 a.m. at the Public Safety Training Campus, 1175 Conshohocken Road, Conshohocken, PA This year s featured speaker will be Dan Madrzykowski MS, of the UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute, who will present Modern Fire Behaver/Updated Research: What every Chief needs to know before your next working fire. The seminar will include lunch and include two break-out sessions offered after he main presentation. The breakout sessions are: Assisting Police in Tactical Situations - A local case study. Planning and Responding to High Profile/Sensitive Events A local case study Everyone goes home, including you! Don t have a heart attack. What every Fire Chief and Fire Official needs to know about high tech alarm systems Firefighter Down Every Second Counts Emergency medicine in 50 minutes. Who are you going to call when the trench collapses? Focus on USAR & Hazmat. Although this seminar is designed for Chief Officers, Fire Chiefs are encouraged to invite a company officer that he/she is developing for a Chief Officer position.

An added benefit to attending the seminar is that should the NFPA recommend skill maintenance documentation for advanced certification, the continuing education units (CEUs) provided for this seminar

3 An added benefit to attending the seminar is that should the NFPA recommend skill maintenance documentation for advanced certification, the continuing education units (CEUs) provided for this seminar will demonstrate skill maintenance for a number of competencies. You may register by simply sending an to Cindy Myers, Fire Academy Registrar cmyers@montcopa.org. Provide your name, Fire Company and address. Additional information is available in the attached December 2016 Notices. Fitness Studies From The HEART By John Corcoran DPS Most people are aware that regular exercise is good for them. But I didn t realize just how good a relatively short period of exercise would be for me until I signed up for a four-week clinical study at Ursinus College s HEART Laboratory. I was one of about 40 participants in this latest study, which examined the effect that four weeks of resistance training (weight lifting) has on blood vessel and heart health, especially on volunteer firefighters. I find four weeks valuable because after four weeks, you re still doing the exercises, you re still excited, you re still motivated and we can give you a different program. That s what we do and people continue to exercise and they like it, said Professor Deborah Feairheller. Dr. Deb Feairheller and Ursinus College Senior Allyson Getty testing vascular health prior to the workout program Feairheller, who runs the Hypertension and Endothelial Function with Aerobic and Resistance Training (HEART) Lab at Ursinus, is a volunteer with the Limerick Fire Company and she has run with several other fire companies in Chester and Montgomery counties. And she knows the statistics when it comes to firefighters. There were 91 Line of Duty (LOD) firefighter deaths in 2014, the most recent year data is available for, and 61 of those (67%) were from stress or overexertion (heart attacks and strokes), according to the U.S. Fire Administration. The four-week studies that Feairheller is doing are unusual, she said. Most studies are eight or 12 weeks at a minimum and many are six months to a year. The problem with the longer studies is that many people drop out, she said. They move away, get injured or just get bored and quit and go back to bad habits. Beyond her research and teaching her students, who perform the testing and walk study participants through their workouts, Feairheller has made it a mission of her work at the HEART Lab to encourage volunteer firefighters to adopt healthier habits through education. We re trying to find exercise programs that are portable, you can do at home, that are enjoyable and people like, she said. Our program is designed to get you moving, get you exercising and build your strength.

An effective way to motivate participants to continue exercising is to put their own clinical results in front of them after just four weeks. My personal results were pretty dramatic.

4 An effective way to motivate participants to continue exercising is to put their own clinical results in front of them after just four weeks. My personal results were pretty dramatic. I worked out for 90 minutes just 11 times over four weeks. That was enough to lose 11 pounds of fat and gain eight pounds of muscle, for a net loss of three pounds. If I had exercised for four weeks on my own, without the pre- and post-testing and being shown the results, I would have concluded that losing three pounds was not that big of a deal. The testing also showed decreases in my blood pressure and BMI. For fitness testing, I was put through plank pose, stair climb, single-leg stands, leg press, bench press and treadmill testing and recorded noticeable improvements in every one. I should note that my results are not typical. Most participants have not had as much fat loss and muscle gain. That s because I was in such bad shape to begin with, which was my motivation to participate in the study. The live fire and advancing a 2-1/2 inch hose line drills had become a lot harder than they should have been. I m planning to continue exercising in the New Year and I hope to continue seeing improvement. This was the second of three studies involving fourweek exercise programs that Feairheller is conducting. The first involved participants performing functional fitness circuit training. Guys were carrying hoses, they were carrying extrication tools, we had people on campus that were carrying musical equipment, whatever they could find that weighed 40 pounds, she said. There is an article detailing that program in the December edition of Fire Engineering. Feairheller will also be one of the presenters for the breakout sessions at this upcoming Command Officers Seminar on January 28 th. She has plans to conduct another four-week aerobic exercise program in 2017 and then compare the results all three studies. In addition to the studies, Feairheller and her HEART lab students will go out to firehouses on drill nights, when asked, and give educational seminars and diet workshops. For three days prior to the diet workshops, they ask the firefighters to write down everything they eat and drink. Her students then use that information to provide each of them an analysis of their diet and recommendations for improving it. I find that especially when we go into the firehouses and we do these things, there are a lot of questions. You hear the news and you don t really know what you should do and you don t really know how to do it, Feairheller said. I like that we can get out there and kind of grass-roots educate.

5 2017 EDITS Symposium Registration will open January 15 th for the 2017 Emergency Disaster Incident Training Symposium (EDITS), but any agency that needs to spend down 2016 budget funds prior to Dec. 31, 2016 should contact Heather Morgan at or Kim Kirshner at The main EDITS conference will be held during the day on May 2 nd & 3 rd, 2017, but a new feature for this year s EDITS will be an evening presentation on May 1 st, 2017 that is being offered at no cost to volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel within and for $15 per person for out-of- county registrants. EDITS is sponsored by the Eastern Emergency Management Group. The evening presentation is sponsored by and made possible through the generosity of The Consortium of Municipalities. Speakers and Topics, Evening Session: Robert Lipscomb, Battalion Chief, Lynchburg Fire Department Response and Recovery to the Bakken-Crude Oil Train Derailment Al Whitaker, Director, Greenbrier County Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency How to Deal with a 1000 Year Flood Sam Dorosa, Monroe County Fire Coordinator Lessons Learned: Webster New York Christmas Eve Firefighter Ambush Speakers and Topics, Daytime Sessions: The presenters for the evening session will also present at the daytime sessions. In addition, there will be the following presentations: Chief John Mina & Deputy Chief Robert Anzueto, Orlando Police Department Lessons Learned from the 2016 Pulse Nightclub Shooting Mark Diedrich, St. Louis County Police Department, Office of Emergency Management Ferguson: The EMA Perspective Lt. Brian Bovaird, Baltimore City Mayor's Office of Emergency Management Civil Unrest in Baltimore City: Lessons Learned in Leadership, Response, and Training David S. Flamm, Deputy Director Santa Clara County Office of Emergency Services Super Bowl 50- Lessons Learned Fire Academy Posts Spring-Summer 2017 Training Schedule The Fire Academy has posted the Spring-Summer 2017 Training Schedule on the Department of Public Safety s web site. Both the training schedule and a course catalogue can be accessed from the Fire Academy s web page:

Entry Level Fire Fighter Graduation The Fire Academy graduated 15 new firefighters of Class 1604 from the Pennsylvania Entry Level Fire Fighter program on November 30 th.

6 Entry Level Fire Fighter Graduation The Fire Academy graduated 15 new firefighters of Class 1604 from the Pennsylvania Entry Level Fire Fighter program on November 30 th. Deanna Durante, a reporter for NBC 10, was the commencement speaker. Firefighter Robert Swartley of the Trappe Fire Company received the Interior Firefighter Award. Congratulations to all. Below is a list of graduates: Firefighter Daniel Arbucias, Phoenixville Firefighter Zachary Assenmacher, Oakmont Firefighter Richard Bradley, Flourtown Firefighter Ryan Gross. Telford Firefighter Sean Hagerty, Fort Washington Firefighter James Keck, Norco Firefighter Kevin Kerwin, Norco Firefighter Arianna Lozano, Radnor Firefighter Scott Marcinko, Radnor Firefighter Luther Mc Callion, Oreland Firefighter Andrew Meixell, Upper Frederick Firefighter Jordan Perla, Skippack Firefighter Brett Quigley, Union Fire Association Firefighter Robert Swartley, Trappe Firefighter Robert Walls, Spring Mill

Emergency Management Certificates Achieved Congratulations to Department of Public Safety staff members who successfully completed FEMA, PEMA and NENA certifications.

Basic Certification), Amanda Brady (PEMA County Professional Certification), Matt Markland (PEMA County Professional Certification), Todd Stieritz (FEMA Advanced Professional Series

7 Emergency Management Certificates Achieved Congratulations to Department of Public Safety staff members who successfully completed FEMA, PEMA and NENA certifications. Pictured left to right: Caitlyn Bonner (NENA Emergency Number Professional Certification), Kevin Rairdon (FEMA Advanced Professional Series Certification), Roy Land (PEMA County Basic Certification), Amanda Brady (PEMA County Professional Certification), Matt Markland (PEMA County Professional Certification), Todd Stieritz (FEMA Advanced Professional Series Certification), and Tom Sullivan, Director of Public Safety. Congratulations to Mike McCann, Deputy Emergency Management Coordinator for Hatfield Township, received his PEMA Local Advanced Certification.

Public Safety News Montgomery County Department of Public Safety

Public Safety News Montgomery County Department of Public Safety Public Safety News Department of Public Safety SEPT. 13, 2017 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 9 Department of Public Safety 610-631-6500 Thomas Sullivan Director John Corcoran Deputy Director, Public Affairs Public