Legislators Plan January Hearing On Hurricane Sandy Response

Rockland County Legislators Jay Hood and Ed Day will hold a hearing in January 2013 to evaluate the county’s emergency response during Hurricane Sandy and the recovery efforts.

Hood, chairman of the legislature’s Public Safety Committee will invite the Director of the county’s Office of Fire & Emergency Services Gordon Wren, town and village leaders and representatives from local utility companies to appear before the committee to provide post-event analysis of storm preparedness, response, clean-up and restoration measures. The discussion will center on identifying actions that can be improved or implemented to increase public safety and storm relief as well as lessen the threat of property damage in the future.

Within a 14 month period, Rockand experienced Hurricane Irene and the freak October snowstorm in 2011 and more recently Hurricane Sandy, all of which caused signficant damage and extensive power outages.

“Over the past year, the Public Safety Committee met with emergency personnel and utility representatives to identify shortfalls in the response to Irene and the October storm and to develop and establish measures to improve upon response and recovery," said Hood. "This storm presented new factors - the shortage of gas and unprecedented school closures.  It is essential that we collect data on Hurricane Sandy in a timely manner, so we may continue to analyze our storm response protocols.”

Day said it is essential to determine if changes recomended and agreed to last year were implemented for Hurricane Sandy.

“The committee did a lot of work last year as part of the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and the Halloween storm in identifying shortfalls and recommending improvements, and certain representations were made by Orange & Rockland to this community, said Day. "I look to be an active part of an effective post-event critical analysis on behalf of the people of Rockland. They all deserve answers to the hard questions, and rest assured we will do our utmost to obtain
that.”