BENTONVILLE -- While they're not expecting it, Benton County officials are preparing for a disaster similar to the ice storm that hit the county in January 2009.
With six years having passed since that storm, the county needs to review what was done then and what plans are in place now to deal with another ice storm or other disaster of similar magnitude, County Judge Bob Clinard said.
"We've talked about the plans we have for a disaster," Clinard said. "The ice storm in 2009 was definitely a problem for the county at the time."
The ice storm and the damage left to be cleaned up afterward cost the county about $6 million, according to news reports from 2009. With federal and state disaster assistance, the county paid about $450,000 of that cost. Also, the county became embroiled in a lawsuit with one of the companies hired to clean up debris -- TNT Dirtworks of Decatur -- and paid another $568,945 to settle the lawsuit.
The county had a choice of outsourcing the work overseeing the cleanup from the 2009 ice storm and opted not to do so, Clinard said. His choice would be to bring in someone with experience in disaster situations, Clinard said.
"At this point and going forward, if we had a disaster like this again we'll have a management team come in," Clinard said. "Whether it's ice storms or tornadoes or hurricanes, there are different companies that manage the work of cleanup afterward and act as a liaison with the state and with FEMA, making sure everything is done right."
The county has meetings planned to discuss disaster response with industry representatives, and county officials are reviewing how the county's initial response will be handled as well, Clinard said.
Jeff Clark, the county's public services administrator, is head of the Road Department that handles the initial response for most normal weather-related emergencies.
"We're just trying to get a basic plan of action together," Clark said. "It's can't be a one-size-fits-all plan since no tornadoes are the same. No ice storms are the same. But we can have a plan of who gets called first. In what order does it get called a county disaster, then a state and then federal? We need to have a standard procedure for our initial attack."
Joel Jones, justice of the peace for District 7, is chairman of the county's Public Safety Committee. The justices of the peace will want to know what the county's plans are, but the Quorum Court doesn't have much of a role to play in a disaster situation, Jones said.
"That's really the judge's and Jeff's purview," Jones said. "I know there were some issues during the last big ice storm with hanging limbs and downed trees. They seem to have done a much better job since then with the protocols they have in place. We just want to know what they are."
NW News on 01/05/2015