About AEMA
The Emergency Management Department
of the Village of Antioch is dedicated to serving its residents using best
management practices. Elected Officials and Employees of the Village of
Antioch have undergone NIMS (National Incident Management System) training
in order to provide safety and security to its residents.
Emergency Management
has been around for many years. Some of you will remember it as ESDA -
Emergency Services and Disaster Agency and others will remember it as CD -
Civil Defense. Prior to September 11, 2001, most emergency management
agencies, choreographed after FEMA, were the people called when severe
weather damaged communities. Since 9-11, Homeland Security has become the
center focal point. During the days of Civil Defense, attacks to the United
States were considered and agencies would plan to cope with such attacks
while concerting their main efforts on natural disaster situations. Today
the focus is still on natural disasters but more emphasis is on the
possibility of terrorism.
With technology
constantly changing, the “what if” factor must be planned for. Emergency
management is the planning, training, testing and evaluating of our
emergency resources and being prepared to handle the results of a disaster
or emergency. The Village of Antioch is fortunate in having the ability to
have trained personnel within the Police, Fire, Rescue Squad and Public
Works. The addition of Emergency Management personnel helps bring the first
responding agencies the additional resources and team goal of restoring our
community back to a state of normalcy after a large scale emergency strikes.
Emergency
Alerting Systems
The Village of Antioch is striving to improve our Emergency Alerting Systems.
Our goal is to insure that the citizens of our community receive warning of
impending danger in a timely manner.
Outdoor Warning Sirens
Since
1946, the Village has had one faithful outdoor warning siren. This siren,
located on the water tower on Orchard & Toft, has been heard on the first
Tuesday of every month (except October 2001) and with each Tornado Warning
issued by the National Weather Service. Over the past two years, AEMA has
been working with outdoor warning sirens manufactures to locate new sirens
in the best possible location. On January 7, 2008, the Village Board of
Trustees approved the purchasing of three outdoor warning sirens with three
additional to be budgeted for the 2008-2009 Budget.
The
purchased sirens will be placed as follows;
1.
Williams Park – this siren will replace the siren on the Toft St water
tower.
2.
Fire
Station #2 – Deep Lake Road (just north of Depot St)
3.
Clublands Well House – Club Lake Drive
The
sirens planned for early summer are to be located as follows:
4.
Tiffany Farms – Just north of the WC Petty School
5.
Heron
Harbor – at Well House #7 on Bowles Road
6.
To be
determined based on performance of the initial three sirens.
Keep
in mind , the purpose of an Outdoor Warning Siren is in it’s name. Provide
warning to those “outdoors”. Especially, during the spring, summer and
fall, the Village has a multitude of organized outside activities. The
outdoor warning sirens will alert those participating in such activities in
a timely manner to allow them to get to a place that is safe. Those
residents who live close to one of these sirens will definitely hear them in
you homes. Those living further away, will only hear them when outside.
Connect-CTY
In
the summer of 2003, the Village of Antioch Board of Trustees purchased a
telephone system program that can be used to alert residents in their
homes. The system was implemented in the early winter of that year and was
put to the test within its first few days. A policy has been established
that the system will be used for intra-departmental communications
(notification of employees in a given department) and Public
Notifications. Notifications can be made for emergency situations
including severe weather warnings, water main breaks, road closures, boil
orders, hazardous materials notifications, AMBER Alerts and several other
situations. In less than 5 minutes, the system will contact everyone in the
Village who is part of the system. Each month, the system is updated with
the most recent additions and subtractions to the telephone system. In
addition, citizens can update, add, or delete information just bay clicking
on the Connect-Cty emblem located
above.
Weather Radios
With
the help of a STAR Grant from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency,
Antioch Emergency Management Agency has been able to place weather radios in
many locations. Currently, weather radios are located in all of the Village
of Antioch Buildings, all of the schools, buildings that are capable of
having very large gatherings of people, and some outdoor venues. Plans for
this year include having them installed in all of our parks with concession
stands, other large gathering identified locations, target hazard locations
(places that need ample warning to be able to activate in house emergency
plans).
Antioch EMA would like to encourage everyone to purchase a weather radio. It
is strongly recommended that you purchase a radio with
Specific Area Message
Encoding (SAME) capabilities. This will allow the listener to program
in surrounding counties and be alerted to weather hazards approaching from
those areas.
Lightning Detection System
Lightning causes an average of 80 fatalities and 300 injuries each year.
Lightning occurs in all thunderstorms; each year lightning strikes the Earth
20 million times. The energy from one lightning flash could light a
100-watt light bulb for more than 3 months.
Most lightning
fatalities and injuries occur when people are caught outdoors in the summer
months during the afternoon and evening. Lightning can occur from
cloud-to-cloud, within a cloud, cloud-to-ground, or cloud-to-air. Many
fires in the western United States and Alaska are started by lightning. The
air near a lightning strike is heated to 50,000°F. The rapid heating and
cooling of the air near the lightning channel causes a shock wave that
results in thunder.
How far away is the
Thunderstorm?
> Count the
number of seconds between a flash of lightning and the next clap of thunder.
> Divide this
number by 5 to determine the distance to the lightning in miles.
Why
are we telling you all of this?
Recently the Village of
Antioch Parks Department purchased a system that will help pre-warn people
participating in our parks of lightning nearing the area.
Currently three
notification systems are in place and operational. They are located at
Williams Park, Centennial Park and Pedersen Park. Park patrons and nearby
residents will hear a
warning
siren when lightning is detected within 5 miles of the sensor equipment
(located on top of the Village Hall). If the sensor equipment goes for a
period of time (typically 30 minutes) without sensing additional lightning,
an
all clear
siren will be activated. The system will be activated between 8 AM until 9
PM, throughout the summer and early fall. This can be changed based on
actual park activities.
Family Disaster Planning information is available online by clicking
here.
Local Public Safety Agencies
Volunteer Opportunities
The Antioch Emergency Management
Agency is pursuing the possibility of creating an Community Emergency
Response Team (CERT). Much of this team creation will be dependant upon
available funding as the initial start up will be costly. CERT Teams
are trained to a community citizens in many disciplines at the basic
level. Upon completion of the basic level, CERT personnel can take over
basic tasks, allowing the firefighters, rescuers and police to take on
the more technical functions during emergencies. One example of a CERT
replacement would be directing traffic at a given intersection.
If you would be interested in
being part of such a team, please contact Lee Shannon at
lshannon@antioch.il.gov
Sequoit Creek Clean Up
The Antioch Emergency Management Agency in cooperation with the
Village of Antioch is coordinating the much needed clean up of Sequoit
Creek. Over the past few years, meetings have been held. It was
determined that one way to reduce the potential for flooding in Antioch
was to clean up Sequoit Creek.
AEMA is planning the Clean-Up
with several other agencies and Village Officials. The first phase of
the Clean Up took place on August 21, 2004. Because of the magnitude of
the cleanup, additional phases were planned for the fall of 2004 and
spring of 2005.
Many volunteers and equipment
were on site at each of the clean-ups. A lot of debris has been removed
from Sequoit Creek. In fact, because of the creek clean-ups, Sequoit
Creek did not reach its flood stage like many other waterways during
August of 2007. Between the clean-ups and a dredging of the silt
buildup at the outlet to Lake Marie, Sequoit Creek flows freely and at a
manageable level while other rivers and creeks are at the tops of their
banks.
There is additional cleanup work
to be done. Planning is now underway for a Sequoit Creek Clean Up in
the Spring (weather permitting). Additional information will be posted
on this site and in other Village communication avenues. Please stay
tuned for more information.
Links
to State & Federal Agencies
Antioch Emergency
Management Agency
