Deputy Chief RL Colina with Monroe County Fire Rescue joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
The new Emergency Operations Center will be a big help to Fire Rescue.
Chief Colina said, “It’s Monroe County Emergency Operations Center, emergency management building. We have our 911 center in here, and Fire Rescue headquarters, all the main entities right here for emergency response in one hub. We’re extremely excited. It is in full activation. We’re in full swing for anything that comes our way. So we are beyond excited to finally get into the building, and be at 100% here.”
The potential storms heading our way may create conditions that we need to be ready for.
Chief Colina said, “With Monroe County, we’ve enacted it are all hazards emergency operations plan, we’ve sent out the notifications to the stations, almost kind of like the same notifications that we send out with the residents. Ee have the firefighters and the first responders go around each of the departments, each of the stations, make sure that any loose debris, any items that could be blown away, become a projectile, those items are secured. Countywide we send out notifications to ensure that all of the apparatuses, the vehicles, those pieces of equipment that may be used in any type of response are topped off and fueled. Most of our stations have a fuel depot for the apparatus themselves, but we get with our vendors, make sure everything is well topped off and that we’re well prepared.”
Do personnel stay in the county even if it’s evacuated?
Chief Colina said, “We will initiate evacuations for residents and visitors, depending on the location of the storm, the potential impact of the storm, and then at that moment, the first responders, we stay. That’s what we signed up for. We signed up to make sure that any of these hazards can be mitigated quickly, and we can get to them, but with the significant flooding that may occur for different types of storms, we do have certain areas that we’ll be there until the last minute, and then we’ll make that decision whether or not to relocate to a higher ground, move apparatus to a higher location. Just so that once the storm passes, those vehicles are operationally ready and that we’re able to go back out there and start doing some inspections and investigations as to any type of impact from that storm.”
While there hasn’t been any evacuation notices for this coming storm, the men and woman at Fire Rescue are ready.
Chief Colina said, “Absolutely. I’ll tell you what, we definitely have a protocol that they follow with once we get to this point, and we send out these notifications, just to be sure that they understand when they do come to work, they bring extra provisions extra clothes and if we run into an occurrence where it looks like this storm will increase and the band start impacting us, or we start getting a little bit higher rise than normal, then we go to an Alpha Bravo, which is normally double staffing the stations, bringing in extra personnel for those affected areas, just to ensure that any volume or any impact that we have the proper resources in place at that time.”
The county is currently under a heightened awareness.
Chief Colina said, “Our members with emergency management here at the EOC, they are visually watching any changes in the path. Of course, they’re in constant communication with the National Weather Service, and we have just such an amount of resources down here to ensure that we have the latest information. We have a county wide briefing that will encompass from Key West to Ocean Reef. We all get together. We meet at the EOC. We do this through Zoom so that they’re in their own centers as well and we’ll have a briefing this morning and that’ll give us our latest update and kind of what our battle rhythm is going to be for the next period.”
How will the new EOC benefit Fire Rescue?
Chief Colina said, “This location that we’ve moved to, right now, It’s incorporating the sheriff’s department, 911, center, with significant upgrades to that system. It also brought in emergency management and brought in Fire Rescue administration. So we’re all going to be in one location together. Then on top of that is it’s a 365/24, hour operation. With our backup generators, the amount of additional water supply, just such a self sustained building, we don’t feel that the construction of this building could be impacted to where we would have to leave this building to another one. We have redundant systems of communications on board. So even, like before with Irma when we lost communication, we don’t foresee that we will kind of go through that type of impact. Again, with this building, the elevation of the building provides us a lot of security and a lot of promise that operations will never stop. We will be able to continue monitoring and mitigating and getting from field operations to the EOC operations to the state level very seamlessly. Our partners with Monroe County Sheriff office, they have really turned things around with communications where the sheriff had even mentioned before at one point during the storms, they had an issue with power, the location, and they had to relocate some of those personnel and the 911 operation. Where we’re at right now, they’re in an extremely secure location, and the upgraded systems that the sheriff’s office has provided for the community, 911 dispatch and just communication for emergency responders, the sheriff’s office and countywide those improvements right there will pay dividends for years to come in terms of security.”
Fire Rescue recently welcomed the seventh Hot Shots class to the training academy.
Chief Colina said, “We just keep rolling each year with the Hot Shots program and an amazing program for all Monroe County residents, because it is one of those programs that we look for the internal future firefighters and responders within our community, and this class is going forward, and super excited to say that the members that are participating in that program right now have been doing very well, and our training division is at the forefront of making sure that they’re safe, educated and producing good employees for future departments within Monroe County. It’s a great training opportunity that allows them to evaluate where they live and where the needs are from other departments, depending on who is hiring at that time, and give them the opportunity to stay in the Florida Keys, to work in the Florida Keys. This is where their family is from. This is where they went to school, and this is where their ties are and at the end of the day, they have the best interest in helping us protect this community, so we look forward to that.”
For more information, click here: https://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/firerescue