Editor’s note: This commentary is by Dan Baker, of Starksboro, who is an associate professor in the Department of Community Development & Applied Economics at the University of Vermont. In Vermont, his research includes disaster resilience planning in mobile home parks, as well as agricultural labor issues in the dairy industry.
[L]ast April the Vermont School Safety Center put out a School Security Assessment. They found that most schools in Vermont have taken measures to respond to emergencies. Nearly all, 96 percent, have done an emergency drill following the guidelines developed by the center, and 92 percent of schools educate students, faculty and staff about what to do in case of an emergency.
Notification of parents was one of the weak points identified in the report. Only a little more than half, 56 percent, had communicated with parents and guardians about what to do and not do in an emergency. The report notes that “if parents/guardians are unaware of how they can support an emergency at the school, they may take actions that hinder response.”
I think there are parallels between the situation with parental notification in schools and our municipal emergency plans. On a local level, all Vermont municipalities are required to have emergency management plans. According to Vermont Emergency Management, more than three-quarters of municipalities adopted emergency plans in 2018. Although local emergency plans must be adopted at a public meeting, there is no requirement that the public be involved in designing or adopting the plans. Consequently, few people outside of local government and emergency responders are aware of those plans. This was confirmed in a study we did at the University of Vermont, where we found that fewer than one in five Vermonters knew about their town’s emergency plan.
The public’s lack of awareness about emergency plans should not all be laid at school or municipal administrators feet. Parents and citizens bear some responsibility to demonstrate we care by asking about these plans. Not only would more awareness help during an emergency, public participation before a crisis can help identify weaknesses in plans that planners alone cannot anticipate, or are motivated to address. For example, while local plans typically address the threats we expect, like winter storms, power outages and flooding, a good public discussion about whether this is sufficient to meet the needs of today could be useful.
One area that concerns me and that I think bears some discussion is our dependency and vulnerability on the internet and digital communications. It would be hard to listen to the news and not have heard concerns that our systems are unprepared for cyberattacks. Asking how that has been addressed in your local plan provides an incentive for town government to invest in strengthening local systems.
I think we could benefit by going further than that and consider broader questions about what we would do locally and statewide in the event that internet becomes unavailable or unreliable for some period of time. Why that should seem so unimaginable to us is a concern itself. The extent to which we are connected and the speed at which information flows is unprecedented, and while the opportunities it offers are vast, so are the downsides.
In light of reports of attacks undertaken recently on U.S. energy infrastructure, elections and financial systems, it seems foolhardy to assume that local emergency plans not consider how these events would affect us and how we would respond. More chilling is the new ability of malicious actors to manipulate video and audio so that it appears someone you trust is saying something they did not in fact say. The confusion that could be sown by that kind of misinformation would be substantial.
I think back to the effective use of social media in Vermont following Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Social media helped share information and organize volunteer efforts, as well as let people know which roads were open and which closed. The speed at which sites were put up and people were able to connect and organize was not only impressive, it was crucial. I wonder today about our ability to maintain confidence in those systems in this era of digital manipulation, as well as whether we risk placing so much confidence in those systems that we neglect developing alternatives in case they are simply not there.
I think we have many reasons to be optimistic about our resilience and ability to manage emergencies in Vermont when we do take a hit. On a household level, most Vermonters meet the minimums for preparedness. In that same UVM study we found that 81 percent of state residents said they had food and water for 72 hours, which is what the Red Cross recommends households have on hand. As a small state we generally have good communication between local and state authorities. In an increasingly digital world, Vermont’s culture of volunteerism, participation and face to face meetings go a long way to helping us organize ourselves in a crisis. As citizens we can reinforce that by reaching out to our schools and local governments to ask about their plans if things go awry, and learn about the best way we can help if they do. Communities that know each other and have practiced together are better able to respond to emergencies and prevent them from becoming disasters.
