Florida SART: Florida State Agricultural Response Team

Craig Fugate Selected to Head FEMA

President Barack Obama will nominate Craig Fugate to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and help the administration “improve our preparedness, response and recovery efforts.”

(Photo courtesy AEN)

Fugate has been director of Floridas Division of Emergency Management since 2001. Prior to that, he was the agencys assistant director for more than four years. Florida ESF-17 Coordinator Joe Kight praised Fugates nomination, saying, "Craig leaves the Division in good shape. He has promoted training and response programs and developed strong, but thoughtful leadership capabilities among his staff."

Fugate’s new boss, Department of Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano called Fugate one of the most experienced emergency managers in the country. “The work he’s accomplished in Florida serves as a model for other states,” she said. “He will be a tremendous asset to FEMA and its employees.”

Former FEMA administrator R. David Paulison said, “There are few people around the world that have Craig Fugate’s disaster experience.”

The most immediate challenge(s)?
Paulison thought there would be two…or three:

1. How to house catastrophic disaster victims who are displaced from their homes.
2. How to make the long-term recovery process more efficient. (3 ½ years later, thousands of victims of Katrina and Rita still live in temporary housing.)
3. Paulison predicted that Fugate will be shocked when confronted by the federal bureaucracy when he takes over FEMA. “The bureaucracy up there is tremendous,” he said. “It can be very frustrating to get things done.”

Attend The 2009 SART Conference!
"Home, Ranch and Farm - Working Together Works!"

Okay, we’re past the deadline to register for the 2009 SART Conference, but you should still come and participate and share your experiences and learn what goes down when the juju breaks bad. We will still talk to you and will not make you tattoo a red letter on your forehead! Well okay, maybe we do plan to go with the forehead tattoo, but this year’s conference title highlights the spirit of inter-agency, inter-governmental and even inter-personal cooperation that is needed to get Florida’s agricultural community through a disaster in the best possible shape: “Home, Ranch and Farm – Working Together Works!” At this conference, you can learn why and how working together works.

Conference kick-off is for 1:00 pm Wednesday the 25th. This month! A link to registration and the up-to-date info about the conference agenda is available near the top of the home page of Florida’s SART web site at www.flsart.org.

This year’s conference hotel is the Holiday Inn Oceanfront Resort, Cocoa Beach www.hicocoabeachhotelsite.com. Contact them right away because they might still have some of those ocean-view rooms with Jacuzzi available … not! (See what you missed by not registering early!)

UF College of Veterinary Medicine Large Animal Technical Rescue Team Training
By John Haven, Director, UF-CVM

Okay, we’re past the deadline to register for the 2009 SART Conference, but you should still come and participate and share your experiences and learn what goes down when the juju breaks bad. We will still talk to you and will not make you tattoo a red letter on your forehead! Well okay, maybe we do plan to go with the forehead tattoo, but this year’s conference title highlights the spirit of inter-agency, inter-governmental and even inter-personal cooperation that is needed to get Florida’s agricultural community through a disaster in the best possible shape: “Home, Ranch and Farm – Working Together Works!” At this conference, you can learn why and how working together works.

Conference kick-off is for 1:00 pm Wednesday the 25th. This month! A link to registration and the up-to-date info about the conference agenda is available near the top of the home page of Florida’s SART web site at www.flsart.org.

This year’s conference hotel is the Holiday Inn Oceanfront Resort, Cocoa Beach www.hicocoabeachhotelsite.com. Contact them right away because they might still have some of those ocean-view rooms with Jacuzzi available … not! (See what you missed by not registering early!)

Conference Alert: Rene Segraves Highlights Lake County
"Its going to be great and everybodys going to want to be there, because I dont like doing boring talks!"

Pet-friendly versus not so pet
friendly. (Rick Sapp photos)

“We have been very successful in the area of pet-friendly shelters,” says Rene Segraves, Lake County ESF17 Coordinator in Tavares (352) 343-9688/267-8059 rsegraves@co.lake.fl.us.

 “The secret to success is perseverance. We have been trying for many, many years to get the Red Cross to let us have a shelter in the schools where the people are. It’s a good idea to have a shelter to take your animals to, but it is a better idea to have your animals right next door. Animals aren’t housed with people but we usually get an equipment room for set up and it’s nice to know that people in the shelter can come take care of their animal when possible. People know that not only are they safe, but their animals are safe as well…and under the supervision of a trained animal technician. We have taken lap dogs and snakes and birds and hamsters and everything.

“The schools were initially very resistant to having pets, but we asked if they would allow us to try with one and said that if they were not totally, completely satisfied with what we did there then we would understand why they would not allow us to return. We left the building cleaner than we found it…we really did and they were just amazed. We had everything totally organized, just down to a science. We have a kit labeled for each shelter and two people assigned to it. In the kit is everything they need to set up, run the shelter, take it down and clean up afterwards.”

“We haven’t had anyone tell us, ‘No. You can’t come back.’ We had tornadoes several years ago and had shelters open for two-three weeks, easily. When people left the shelters we kept their animals here at Lake County Animal Services Shelter if needed, and with donated feed, kept some of them for almost a year before the owners were able to take them back.”

You will not want to miss the Thursday 1:00 PM County ESF 17 panel discussion at this year’s SART Conference in Cocoa Beach. It will be moderated by Bill Armstrong, Hillsborough County. Panel members include Richard Ziegler, Leon County; Daisy Harch, Palm Beach County; Rene Segraves, Lake County; and David Cline, Glades County.

I-400

David Perry and John Haven taught the I-400 “Advanced Incident Command System” in February at the North Florida Research and Education Center, 155 Research Rd., Quincy, FL 32351-5677. (Here are a couple photos from that course, courtesy John Haven’s Blackberry!)

A copy of your “Certificate of Completion” from I-100, I-200 and I-700 must be presented to register for I-300. To take I-400, a copy of the I-300 Certificate is required. Prerequisite courses can be taken on-line at the SART web site at www.flsart.org/library/atm_sart.htm.

An excellent source for information about training and learning opportunities is your SART Sentinel at www.flsart.org, but also the Florida Division of Emergency Management web site at www.floridadisaster.org/Trainingcalendar/index.asp.

             

A Florida SART Partner
Florida Fertilizer & Agrichemical Association

Formed in 1932, the Florida Fertilizer & Agrichemical Association (www.ffaa.org) is a not-for-profit trade organization of fertilizer, limestone, agrichemical manufacturers, formulators, distributors and dealers.

According to the FFAA web site, founding members advocated “strong standards for improving agriculture through science and furnishing the Florida growers with dependable and proven agriculture production facts.”

FFAA defines its mission this way:

• Enhance the public's perception of Florida's fertilizer and agrichemical industry.
• Promote the safe, responsible use of fertilizer and agrichemicals.
• Enhance education efforts throughout the state.

Reduce - Reuse - Recycle

All fertilizers and soil amendments are not created equal. In the midst of learning how run-off fertilizers and agro-chemicals are especially difficult for Florida’s freshwater environment to process when used inappropriately, Organic Recovery LLC (OR-LLC) in Pompano Beach has found opportunity where none previously existed.

South Florida mountains are not the result of geologic
upheaval, but of waste from a human population that may
be trapped in a "consumer economy."(Rick Sapp photo)

A spin-off of Advanced Marine Technologies, Organic Recovery developed a process to turn food waste into soil amendments for commercial agriculture and gardening.

A 2008 article in Green Business Quarterly, estimated that by partnering with Publix Super Markets, OR-LLC could prevent 17,000 tons of waste from entering Florida landfills annually. The company also takes the waste grease from Publix and converts it into bio-diesel for company trucks.

To read Daniel Casciato’s article in Green Business Quarterly, visit www.amerigrow.com/pdfs/organicrecoveryad.pdf.

AgERT Training

Basic Agricultural Emergency Response Training (AgERT) provides an overview of agro-terrorism as well as chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive hazards, relative to potential impact on agricultural resources and the agricultural community.

This Free course lasts 32 hours. Lectures include response actions, epidemiology, zoonotic and foreign animal diseases, animal restraint and euthanasia, and animal carcass disposal. Hands-on training teaches the selection and use of Personal Protective Equipment, decontamination, using survey and monitoring equipment, and preserving a crime scene. The course ends with an exercise requiring response to a hazardous event in an agricultural setting.

Location: Center for Domestic Preparedness, Anniston, AL
Target Audience: Veterinarians, animal health technicians, animal inspectors, food inspectors, HAZMAT technicians, game wardens and animal control officers
Additional Qualifications/Certifications: AgERT candidates have successfully completed awareness training for CBRNE response and the FEMA IS-700 course.
Dates: April 5-11, May 3-9 and June 7-13
Web site: https://cdp.dhs.gov/resident/agert.html

An inside look at AgERT

       FDACS’ David Perry has attended several training courses at the federal facility in Anniston, Alabama and says Basic AgERT is “a really great class” for men or women.
       Possible attendees in the Target Audience need to understand that the course itself is Free. Room and board are also Free and, according to Perry, the food is both excellent quality and abundant. In the dormitory, attendees have private rooms but do share an adjoining bathroom with someone of the same sex. If individuals attend together, they can almost certainly be paired in adjoining rooms.
       Two little-known facts about Anniston training:

1. Attendees must be approved through FDACS and one can contact the Tallahassee office (850) 410-0920 for specific application information. Once FDACS approves attending, the request is forwarded to Anniston for final review and coordination.
2. Attendees can drive or if approved, a Free airline flight will be arranged. Some mileage reimbursement (the amount of economy class airfare) is provided.

Best possible advice for attendees?

       David Perry has an additional recommendation for possible attendees and it is to go during the spring or fall, the cooler time of year.
       Of course it is hot and humid in North Alabama, but Floridians understand the weather. Apparently however there is not only classroom work, but a lot of outdoors field-exercises that include wearing impervious Level B Haz-Mat suits and breathing through a canister. The hands-on training takes place both at the federal facility and at a nearby University of Auburn laboratory.
       Expect to ride a bus every day – to and from the dorm and cafeteria, to classrooms and to the Auburn lab – but when it comes to travel Perry suggests that as long as fuel is relatively inexpensive, residents of North and Central Florida might want to consider driving. When the feds provide the free airline ticket it will be for an economy flight at a time when the least-expensive fare is available and thus may involve significant waits in airports. (Just a thought….)

           Photos above: Training in progress at the Center for Domestic Preparedness, Anniston, AL. The inside simulation featured potential threats of a booby-trap set by radical animal liberation – note scrawling on wall and equipment. (Photos courtesy David Perry)

Dont Flush Your Meds

Florida has long been sold as the state with the very best possible climate in the continental US. No snow to shovel. No state income tax. Thus, the US Census Bureau estimates that while the US as a whole grew by 7.2% from 2000 to 2007, Florida’s population grew by 14.2%! While persons 65 years of age and older number 12.6% in the US, the number in Florida is 17.0%.

(Photo New York Department of
Environmental Conservation)

As we age, the tendency is to accumulate medicines. It is part of our SART all-hazard mission to encourage folks to return old medicines to pharmacies or to their doctors. Unfortunately, it is too easy to flush old pills.

According to an article by Mark Steingraeber in the Winter 2008 issue of “Eddies:  Reflections on Fisheries Conservation, ‘Science shows that the therapeutants can show up in water you drink. Then can also feminize fish that swim in it – that is, turn the boys into girls.”

In LaCrosse County, Wisconsin, Steingraeber says, the county will accept unwanted meds at the Household Hazardous Materials station. Since 2007 nearly seven tons have been incinerated! To find out more, visit www.smarxtdisposal.net. (And that is not a misspelling. Think of it as SmaRxT Disposal…. The web site is a partnership between the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the American Pharmacists Assn.)

Your Florida Quiz
Can you name the places you might be called upon to respond or report and think of the all-hazard possibilities?
(Answers follow "About the SART Sentinel")