USA — Pennsylvania Readies Emergency Assets for Flooding

HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 1, 2010 — Gov. Edward G. Ren­dell yes­ter­day ordered the Penn­syl­va­nia Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency to acti­vate its emer­gency oper­a­tions cen­ter, which enables state agen­cies to assist local munic­i­pal­i­ties, gov­ern­ments and res­i­dents in deal­ing with heavy rain­fall in many parts of the state.

The gov­er­nor also direct­ed the Penn­syl­va­nia Nation­al Guard to be on stand-by sta­tus for the cen­tral and east­ern parts of the state, where rain is fore­cast to be heaviest. 

“A good deal of rain has fall­en already and the Nation­al Weath­er Ser­vice is now fore­cast­ing high­er rain­fall totals than orig­i­nal­ly antic­i­pat­ed,” Ren­dell said. “Peo­ple who live along streams and creeks know the dan­gers of rapid­ly ris­ing water. In light of the fore­cast, these res­i­dents need to be prepared. 

“That’s why they should take imme­di­ate steps to pre­pare before the sit­u­a­tion becomes an emer­gency,” the gov­er­nor added. 

PEMA is prepar­ing the appro­pri­ate dis­as­ter dec­la­ra­tion, should it become necessary. 

The heavy rain will increase the poten­tial for flash floods in cer­tain areas. Local and state emer­gency man­agers are prepar­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of minor and mod­er­ate flood­ing, with a poten­tial for evac­u­a­tions and road clo­sures in some areas. 

Agen­cies includ­ing the depart­ments of Mil­i­tary and Vet­er­ans Affairs, Trans­porta­tion, Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and Agri­cul­ture; the Penn­syl­va­nia State Police; the Pub­lic Util­i­ty Com­mis­sion; the Turn­pike Com­mis­sion; and the Fish and Boat Com­mis­sion will staff the Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Center. 

Addi­tion­al agen­cies could be called upon to sup­port the response as deemed necessary. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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