Disaster proclamation sends city workers scurrying to submit report

With Gov. JB Pritzker issuing a disaster proclamation for Sangamon County Tuesday as a result of the June 29 derecho storm, city workers were scurrying to issue a report to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency via the county, said Mayor Misty Buscher after a speedy committee of the whole meeting.

The proclamation, which also includes Morgan County and six other counties, gives entities broader access to state resources in the months ahead.

Also at Tuesday's meeting, former Mayor Jim Langfelder addressed what he called "misstatements" by Buscher at a July 5 city council meeting about technology which might have better aided City Water, Light and Power in the aftermath of the storm that caused widespread damage across the city and knocked power for more than half of its customers.

More: Superintendent: District 186 schools, buildings escaped storm damage

Langfelder told The State Journal-Register later Tuesday that he had members of the public say "the administration was blaming (me) for the outages. The bottom line why I came up there tonight was because they were misleading."

Buscher said after the meeting that the city was still tracking expenses and accruing bills and receipts for the clean-up "so we can turn all of that in. That's our first step and then we'll go from there. It will be a continuous bouncing ball for a while."

Businesses that lost merchandise or restaurants that lost food and drink were encouraged to submit totals to the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce, Buscher said.

"(With the disaster proclamation) we can now work with them to get help with the Small Business Administration," Buscher said.

IEMA will submit the city's report to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Buscher said. When she asked IEMA officials if there was a specific timeframe for FEMA to respond, she was told it could take "weeks, months, so just be prepared. This will be a long, arduous process," she said.

Officials with IEMA and the Office of Homeland Security have worked alongside local governments. The considerable amount of work has exhausted many local resources thus prompting the need for more assistance.

“Many Illinois communities suffered extensive damages due to last week’s torrential rain and severe weather,” said Pritzker in a statement.  “To support those impacted across the state, I have signed a disaster proclamation to mobilize every available resource, accelerating the recovery process and providing relief for our residents. I want to thank IEMA-OHS for their ongoing coordination.”

CWLP Chief Utility Engineer Doug Brown said at a press conference Monday that the utility has in the neighborhood of $20 million in expenses alone, though that could change.

There were still out-of-town mutual aid crews assisting the utility Tuesday, Buscher said, though they are going to be sent home soon. Illinois Department of Transportation crews will remain helping Public Works through the end of the week.

A glimpse of what happened in the aftermath of the brief but intense storm also has started to emerge Tuesday.

"What a lot of citizens don't know is that radios weren't working. 911 couldn't get communication," Buscher recalled. "It was mass chaos and if anything could have gone wrong for that storm, it did."

As office directors piled into the emergency operations command center in the lower level of the Municipal Center East the evening of the storm, Buscher asked who was the city's emergency management coordinator.

"They said, we've never had one, so I appointed myself the emergency management coordinator that evening," she said. "In a perfect world, that would not be me. It would be a first responder."

Buscher said one of the frustrating parts was that Police, Fire, Public Works and CWLP were on separate programs "so no one knew what the (other) was doing that night in the operations center. We have to put everybody into one system so they can see and work together."

Much of the communication, she said, was by cell phone.

Another fallout from the storm will be the creation of a long-term recovery committee, which is being shored up by Director of Community Relations Ethan Posey.

"We've invited a handful of stakeholders from the community to start the conversations with Director Posey and they will invite others to be at that table," Buscher said. "That way, if any disaster were to recur, whether it's Mother Nature or man-made, this group can step in and assist the community."

Langfelder speaks out

At issue for Langfelder, who was defeated by Buscher in the April 4 election, was Buscher's response to a July 5 public comment made by Greg Vogt about not being able to get answers on power being restored to his home on Lake Springfield following the storms.

Buscher said Advanced Metering Infrastructure, or AMI readers, would have allowed CWLP workers to see immediately who did and didn't have power.

"This is the mess I've inherited a little bit," Buscher said at the July 5 city council meeting. "Doug Brown asked for AMI readers, which would have expedited our process in the past and they were not approved. This administration will get information to these council members so they will see the costs of those AMI readers."

Langfelder, however, told the COW Tuesday that his administration pushed for smart meters.

"The misstatement was when they said CWLP presented it and it wasn't approved. That's not the case," Langfelder said after the meeting. "We were pushing for smart meter technology and CWLP wanted to phase-in and not go as expeditiously as we wanted to. The reason I came up there (Tuesday) was to correct that misstatement and to show the support (for the technology)."

Buscher afterwards didn't immediately address Langfelder's comments.

"I've been in office two months," Buscher said. "That person had 96 months, so we'll just leave it at that."

Langfelder acknowledged the costs would run into the millions but said there had been previous discussions with companies that offered to come in and do assessments and what it would take to implement the readers.

He added there were "plenty of funds to put together a financial structure to make the project come to fruition."

The storm, Langfelder said, should move the technology to the top of the pile for Buscher.

"We'll see," he said, "if they have the initiative or the gumption to do it."

Reporter Patrick Keck contributed to this story. Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Springfield takes next steps after disaster proclamation issued