"Agricultural Traditions Meet Modern Day Hazards" with Clinton County EMA

What makes Clinton County unique?

Located in Southwest Ohio, one of the unique things about Clinton County is that they have some very rural areas and traditions that are just a short distance from metropolitan areas such as Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus. Clinton County is situated at the end of the tornado alley and they’ve had their fair share of tornadoes, but thankfully not in recent years. More recently, last Spring there was the threat of a derecho which is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms. Derechos are known to cause severe damage to agriculture and crop harvest.

Clinton County is approximately 95% rural and 5% urban. Their biggest population centers there are the city of Wilmington, followed by the village of Blanchester, and thirdly the village of Sabina. In terms of land coverage, about 69% is used for cultivated crops, a further 15% is forest and 7% is pasture/ hay.  

Dealing with a commercial airport and potential incidents

In the late 1940s, the US Air Force constructed an air force base in Clinton County as part of their Strategic Air Command. Clinton County was a prime location for the airbase due to its rural nature. The base primarily supported Air Force Reserve flight operations and training.

In 1972, the base was decommissioned and repurposed as a commercial airport, Wilmington Air Park. One of the airport’s largest clients is Amazon, with multiple cargo flights operating every day. Like with any large industrial center, Clinton County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) needs to consider and prepare for all of the potential incidents that could arise at the airport in order to ensure the safety of the residents of Clinton County.

Another consideration is the large amount of truck traffic which is generated from the transportation of aviation fuel. Any incident related to hazardous materials at the airport could also affect their water supply as the county’s watershed is located nearby. They work with various partners to monitor any threats closely.

Agricultural chemical storage, transport, and pipelines

The county also has several large storage sites for agricultural chemicals which are used to prepare and fertilize the ground. These chemicals can be hazardous in the undiluted state in which they are stored. The EMA makes sure that they have good safety measures in place and prepares plans for potential incidents.

With the Interstate 71 highway running straight through the State of Ohio, trucks, and transportation are a potential hazard for the county. They also have about 8 different pipelines crossing it that haul fuel and natural gasses heading from the North to the South of the country. They also deal with extremely hazardous flammable shipments by rail.

Staffing a small rural EMA

Thomas is the full-time Director of Clinton County EMA, there is just one other member of paid staff at the EMA who looks after the accounts and volunteer coordination part-time. When a crisis happens, the EMA will bring in volunteers that come from a variety of organizations - both affiliated and non-affiliated.

For example, the American Red Cross would be an affiliated organization. Non-affiliated volunteers would be more spontaneous and respond when called upon through public outlets. It’s important that the EMA ensures these volunteers are properly equipped and aware of the hazards. The EMA will then assign them to an area or a team to work with. This prevents some communities from being overserved and others underserved during an emergency.

Clinton County EMA’s checkpoint status board

Thomas was kind enough to show us around the EMA’s own D4H Incident Management account. We took a look at a recent tabletop exercise they ran with local fire chiefs of a chemical warehouse fire. One of the items to be tracked was checkpoints. Thomas had already created a custom status board to track the exact information they required and formatted it in such a way that they could quickly and clearly see an overview of which checkpoints were ‘Manned’, ‘Unnmanned’, or ‘Not in Place’, with these appearing in green, amber, and red respectively.

The status board also tracks the location of each checkpoint, this auto-fills onto their incident map, giving a clear overview and sense of situational awareness. Having overlayed an image of the incident plume, they can track its spread in relation to checkpoints and any other information tracked on their various status boards.

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Watch the full interview