Most individuals apparently are not, but local officials believe important lessons were learned

By Mike Terry, as published in the Suburban Journals .

A year ago this week, the landscape of much of the Metro East was covered with fallen tree branches and leaves, snapped telephone poles and other scattered debris.

Back-to-back storms had left people stranded in the dark, forcing families and the elderly to stay in emergency shelters or friends' homes to survive the sweltering heat without air conditioning.

Now, 12 months later, life is back to normal. And while this summer has been relatively mild in comparison to 2006, there is no telling if and when another major storm could grace the horizon. The question is: Have we learned anything?

According to a recent study of the St. Louis region by the American Red Cross, although the memories of last July remain strong, most residents are still not prepared in the event of an emergency.

"Most St. Louisans generally understand what it means to be ready, yet the majority has not acted on that knowledge," said Joseph White, chief executive officer for the Red Cross St. Louis Chapter.

Organizations such as the Red Cross often issue basic preparation tips, urging individuals to have at least three days of supplies on hand, including water, non-perishable food items, a first aid kit, medications and a battery-operated radio. Families are also encouraged to establish responsibilities for each person and have two designated meeting places to go following a disaster.

The study, however, shows that only 41 percent of polled residents have actually prepared some kind of a family emergency plan.

That ratio is slightly above the national average, a fact that White attributes to last year's experiences. But he argues that still is not enough.

"There are things that each of us can do to make our home, school and workplace a safer environment," he said. "By planning for all scenarios, we significantly reduce the fear of the unknown."

Some local officials said they believe the area as a whole is better prepared to deal with another natural disaster. Lessons learned from dealing with the prolonged power outage will be invaluable in the future, they said.

In Granite City, city officials have been setting up a system that will specifically target senior citizens and those with disabilities.

Names, addresses and phone numbers are being gathered and put on a list, so if something happens those individuals will be the first targeted to get emergency help. Since the beginning of the year, Granite City officials have also been allowing professional tree trimmers to use the city's public leaf dump. The move has enabled residents to get the service at half price and has left a lot fewer branches in a position to fall on power lines.

"I feel like we did the best we could, but not the best that could have been done," said Granite City Mayor Ed Hagnauer, in reference to last summer. "We aren't taking anything for granted anymore. Every time we see a black cloud, we will be ready."

Troy Police Chief William Brown said he thought the city's response was strong last summer, but admitted some things took longer than he had hoped. Most of that, he said, was because it had been so long since Troy had experienced an emergency situation.

"As the years go by, you kind of get lulled into thinking that those things aren't going to happen," he said. "I think we did a good job, but it definitely could have been more fluid. The biggest thing is that you've got to have a plan and you have to execute it."

Important lessons were also learned by many hardware stores, where employees found a sudden increase in demand for items such as generators, flashlights and batteries, as well as things like chainsaws and lawn bags.

At the Home Depot in O'Fallon, assistant manager Steven Rutherford said that while storms like that are rare, the company has made efforts to be better prepared for sales spikes in the case of a natural disaster.

Over the last 12 months, he said, Home Depot has also seen an increase in interest for whole-house generators, which are professionally installed and run on natural gas. They can be set to run an entire home or just the necessities, whenever the power goes out.

Following last summer's storms, Mascoutah City Manager Terry Draper was proud of how quickly the Public Works Department officials were able to get around town and restore power back to residents. But despite the success, the experience was eye opening on how much modern families depend on electricity, he said.

"When you have an event like that, you always learn something," he said. "The storm was hardest on people with food in their freezers, trying to shift their meats around to people that had electricity."

The 2006 summer storms have also inspired some changes in how government officials plan to respond to natural disasters and other emergencies.

Jack Quigley has been the coordinator of the Madison County Emergency Management Agency for the last 12 years and until last year most of his office's biggest jobs had been as a result of flooding. The widespread power outages posed many different problems - not the least of which were getting the elderly out of hot nursing homes that were without power as quickly as possible.

Since that point, Quigley said, the primary focus has been on consolidating emergency response efforts and finding ways to be "more efficient and organized" with available resources.

The most important point, he said, was making sure that every city, village and township understands "the chain of command" and knows which office to call when they needed help.

At the same time, citizens have been urged to know and keep handy the contact number for their municipality's own emergency coordinator.

"We are pretty good at responding," Quigley said. "But we've got to know that you need the help. Now we are more organized and (local) officials know where to call to get help."

As people were left without a cool place to stay, Quigley pointed out that it seemed almost every church sanctuary and meeting hall with a generator jumped to open its doors as a shelter. But when all was said and done, officials realized that the manpower, cots, blankets and available food would have gone a lot further by utilizing a centralized location.

"The state is now emphasizing that instead of having a multitude of little shelters that can fit 10-15 people, (we should) use a Red Cross-designated shelter that can fit 100," he said.

In the case of an emergency, the location of those mass shelters will be publicized as much as possible and can be found out by contacting the local emergency coordinator.

Quigley said a similar system would now be used for distribution of food and water. In the past, jugs of water and ready-to-eat meals were actually delivered by state officials to emergency shelters.

But officials decided it would be a better use of time and manpower to set up a centralized pickup location, then let each city/village use its public work trucks to get the items and bring them back home.