Preparedness

Ryan Carter Anxious officials hope to open the city's revamped Emergency Operations Center by January, but recent delays leave them unable to set a date to start operations. The center -- described by officials as a kind of "mission control" -- is at the fire training campus on Pacific Avenue near the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport. Built in 1988, it has been the primary hub and informa- tion center for the city's deci- sion-makers during emergen- cies.

Robert Chacon The Glendale Galleria, Burbank Town Center and Rose Bowl have been selected by the Department of Homeland Security to receive a portion of $13 million allocated to California for terrorism preparedness. The three local sites are among 73 locations throughout California which will share the grant funding -- which includes $50,000 per potential site, said David Sommers, spokesman for Los Angeles Supervisor Don Knabe, a member of the State and Local Officials Senior Advising Committee to the Homeland Security Council.

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS WHAT HAPPENED The City Council authorized the acceptance and appropriation of state emergency preparedness equipment funds. WHAT IT MEANS City Manager Mary Alvord can now accept $21,184 in equipment grant funds for the fire department. The 2003-04 budget would be amended to account for the money. The purpose of the grant, according to a city staff report, is to purchase equipment, support planning efforts and conduct training exercises to enhance emergency responses to hazardous materials incidents and terrorism.

At 10 a.m. Thursday, Stevenson Elementary School students in teacher Kelly Clarke’s fourth-grade class ducked under their desks for about a minute and, immediately after, evacuated the classroom. But student Connor Boulais, 9, remained in the classroom because he had suffered a pretend broken ankle after slipping on broken glass as he was trying to leave the room. He had practiced his role in the earthquake drill Monday. Connor waited for a search-and- rescue crew to remove him from the classroom and take him to a medical triage that was set up on the school’s grass field.

BURBANK ? Five years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, heightened preparedness and caution continue to pervade the air travel and public safety climate. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, have had lasting effects on what goes on every day in airports nationwide. And airport security provisions continue to evolve along with terror alert forecasts and international events. When television screens at the Bob Hope Airport broadcast live footage that fateful morning of two airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center in New York, passengers were already inside the terminal, waiting for their morning flights, airport spokesman Victor Gill said.

Mark R. Madler Even as the City Council approved a plan to prepare the city for natural and man-made disasters, the city's disaster-preparedness coordinator anticipated changes because of recent rains. "As new disasters occur, we will add those," preparedness coordinator Rich Baenen said. We will put another page or two [in the plan] on damage to the fire roads from the rain. This is a plan that exists in perpetuity and is a living plan." The City Council unanimously adopted the plan Tuesday, but not without giving its own input.

ON THE AGENDA The following items will be discussed at Tuesday’s Burbank City Council meeting: PUMP STATION UPGRADE The council will consider approving plans that would lead to the expansion of a recycled water pump station in the city. Recycled water is used throughout Burbank for landscape irrigation, industrial use and fire suppression. In recent years, its output has increased, leading officials to call for the station’s upgrade that staff members are recommending be designed by Kennedy/Jenks Consultants.

Ben Godar As American forces wage war in Iraq, city officials are responding by doing everything from engaging in disaster drills to tying yellow ribbons around trees. The potential danger of terrorist attacks as a result of U.S. military action overseas prompted the Burbank Police Department to increase its staffing, but Sgt. Bruce Speirs declined to say how many extra officers are in the field. He emphasized, however, that there is no specific information that Burbank is a target for terrorist acts.

Ryan Carter Authorities are working on updating the city's disaster plan. The plan, which was last updated in 1994 in a voluminous 4-inch thick book, lays out the responses of various city departments and entities in the event of a calamity. "It's No. 1 on the Fire Chief's priority list. That puts it high on ours," said Fire Capt. Ron Barone, who along with Disaster Preparedness Coordinator Rich Baenen, is overseeing the update. "We need to have it done as soon as possible."