Naperville works to fill in emergency response gaps after lessons learned in 2021 tornado
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When an EF3 tornado tore through north Naperville in June 2021, the city’s emergency preparedness was put to the test. Now, more than two years later, the city is working to address shortcomings of long-term disaster response plans made evident in the storm’s aftermath.
In a memo to City Manager Doug Krieger this week, Naperville Emergency Management Agency Coordinator Dan Nelson and Deputy City Manager Marcie Schatz detailed gaps in Naperville’s emergency response — and how to fill them for future events — using lessons learned in 2021 and since.
“As recently reported in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia and the Maui wildfires, ‘Amid the complexities of disaster recovery, the importance of community planning and collaboration cannot be overstated,’” the memo reads, quoting Jacksonville University professor Latisha Nixon-Jones in a Honolulu Civil Beat article from earlier this month.
“Staff sees the opportunity to increase collaboration with community partners and nonprofits to assist in the response to future local disasters,” they wrote.
The memo lays out 16 challenges to the city’s current emergency response system. One half are internal to city operations. The other half concern the broader local community. For each, staff list one or more action items to streamline operations.
On the city’s end, areas of improvement range from officials’ internal communication to the breadth of action plans Naperville has at its disposal to handle different potential hazards. Where residents are concerned, such things as citizen preparedness and the relationship between the city and community members in facilitating recovery are among the areas that need work.
Expected dates to see the items through extend out as far as 2026, with the most near-term item set to tie up at the end of this year. But time frames are fluid, city spokeswoman Linda LaCloche said Friday. Working on preparedness is an everyday action item, she said.
“When it comes to emergency management and emergency response, we’re always training. We’re always preparing,” she said.
Thursday’s memo was borne out of city reflection after facing the strongest tornado to hit Naperville in more than a century, LaCloche said.
On June 20, 2021, an EF3 twister touched down on Naperville’s south side, striking the area near Ranchview Drive and 75th Street. Winds topped 140 mph and left eight people injured, hundreds of structures uninhabitable or damaged, and an untold number of trees destroyed.
For weeks after, the city — in conjunction with mutual aid from nearby municipalities — worked to assess damage and clean up debris. At the time, the city didn’t feel any gaps in its immediate response, LaCloche said.
“In an emergency, we responded well and were able to help the community,” she said.
But in the months that followed, questions over how the community was coping loomed. In December 2021, the city held an open house and conducted a survey of residents to get a better understanding of where needs were.
Some concerns the city dealt with swiftly, such as damaged homes that still needed inspection, LaCloche said. Other conversations, however, sparked more far-ranging goals.
“Long-term recovery is where we saw gaps,” LaCloche said. Filling those were important to making sure residents received a “high level customer service” from the city so they could recover faster in the event of a future disaster, she said.
Take the third response challenge listed in staff’s memo Thursday: “Unclear Emergency Operations Center (EOC) roles, procedures, technology.” LaCloche said with this item, the city will be working to define a chain of command within its emergency response teams so that, in the case of disaster, who’s in charge during what circumstances is already decided.
“When someone has been working for 24 hours, who’s the next person in line?” LaCloche said.
In a similar streamlining effort, the city is developing a new online tracking system for building permits and inspections. This is important during disaster recovery because if someone needs to repair, renovate or demolish their home, they need to obtain city building permits quickly, LaCloche said.
The system the city had been operating under for tracking and issuing those permits was cumbersome after the tornado, according to Thursday’s memo. A better system means better, faster help for residents, LaCloche said.
“With an electronic system, you don’t need to pass around paper copies (of documents) from department to department,” she said. “It creates a better workflow and better customer experience.”
Other planned improvements to Naperville’s emergency response are driven less by workflow and more by teamwork.
After the 2021 tornado, LaCloche said the city “wasn’t prepared” to facilitate the kind of philanthropy community-minded neighbors were seeking.
“(They) wanted to donate immediately,” she said. “We weren’t prepared for that in the sense that it can be overwhelming.”
Residents didn’t have a clear idea of where they could donate so the funds would stay local, she said. For future emergencies, the city hopes to develop an agreement with nonprofit Loaves and Fishes Community Services to manage disaster donations specifically for Naperville. Likewise, it wants to create a volunteer management plan to give interested residents a formal way to be a part of recovery efforts.
Kelly Dougherty welcomes the idea. Dougherty is the co-founder of Naperville Tornado Relief, the neighborhood organization that helped raise $1.5 million to help restore the yards of homes hit hardest in the 2021 tornado.
“It’s absolutely encouraging,” she said. “It would be wonderful for some of those initial boots on the ground efforts to be coordinated by the city.”
As they move forward with action items, city staff will continue to engage local organizations and community partners, and will keep the City Council informed of progress, Thursday’s memo said.
“There were gaps in our ability (as neighbors) to help,” Dougherty said. “It would be wonderful to have more of a centralized spot to call in and get assistance (during a disaster).”
