Illinois emergency personnel to debrief on hurricane response      

[SEPT. 27, 2005]  SPRINGFIELD -- Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich has directed the Illinois Terrorism Task Force to receive reports from Illinois emergency response personnel who took their expertise in law enforcement, fire services, medicine and emergency management to Louisiana and Mississippi to help those hurricane-ravaged states deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"More than 2,100 Illinoisans responded to the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and these volunteers are bringing home with them incredible hands-on experience," Blagojevich said. "I've directed the Illinois Terrorism Task Force to receive reports from our law enforcement officers, our doctors and other emergency personnel who traveled to Louisiana and Mississippi. We can all learn from what they experienced and use that knowledge to help make our state even more prepared to respond to a large-scale disaster."

On Tuesday afternoon, the Illinois Terrorism Task Force will hear reports on hurricane response from four groups that were deployed to Louisiana and Mississippi to help those battered states. The groups were the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System, the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, the Illinois Medical Emergency Response Team and an incident management team that included staff from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and local emergency management officials.

"These groups provided critical assistance to Louisiana and Mississippi following one of this country's largest natural disasters, and from everything we've heard they did an exemplary job," said Mike Chamness, chairman of the task force. "Because these groups are vital components of Illinois' disaster preparedness plan, the task force wants to hear firsthand about their experiences and any lessons learned that can help us further improve our preparedness."

Presentations by the groups are scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Illinois Department of Transportation building, 2300 South Dirksen Parkway in Springfield.

Since Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29, Blagojevich ordered all state agencies to respond in a coordinated manner to help the recovery and cleanup efforts in the Gulf Coast and the victims coming into Illinois. Illinois' efforts to date include the following:

• Illinois has received more than 430 displaced victims who arrived from the Gulf Coast states on four flights arranged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Individuals and families received medical care upon arrival, and the state provided housing in Tinley Park, Elgin, Alton and Rockford. A total of 4,455 victims directly contacted the state for services, according to numbers provided by the Illinois Department of Human Services. The department also estimates that over 8,600 evacuees are currently in Illinois. Blagojevich announced on Sept. 4 that Illinois is ready to receive as many as 10,000 displaced victims and called on elected officials, community leaders, not-for-profit organizations, religious institutions and social service providers to match the state's coordinated relief effort to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

• More than 400 children displaced by Hurricane Katrina are enrolled in 46 school districts across the state, as districts responded to the governor's call to waive residency requirements and open their doors to displaced students.

• Blagojevich deployed more than 2,100 Illinoisans to help Louisiana respond to the devastation resulting from Hurricane Katrina. The deployments include nearly 600 firefighters and 800 National Guard troops.

• The Illinois Department of Employment Security is helping displaced victims process unemployment claims and facilitating job searches and job training. Employee from the Department of Employment Security and Central Management Services have set up remote computer stations at state facilities in Tinley Park and Alton, where the first displaced victims arrived, and are in the process of setting up the same services in Elgin and Rockford, where more evacuees arrived this week.

• A partnership between state government and the private sector is helping find jobs for people who were displaced by two major Gulf hurricanes and are now living in Illinois. The Department of Employment Security is working with the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and Illinois employers with 250 or more employees to identify job openings for hurricane evacuees living in Illinois. More than 70 companies responded to the call and have identified hundreds of jobs.

• A group of more than 100 state employees returned to Illinois after helping the Louisiana Department of Social Services process 25,000 evacuees for emergency food stamps, unemployment benefits, temporary housing and other assistance. Illinois state employees representing more than a dozen agencies assisted Hurricane Katrina victims in the Gulf Coast region.

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• The Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has asked state-chartered banks and thrifts to provide free check cashing, eliminate ATM service fees, and help establish checking and saving accounts for displaced victims now residing in Illinois.

• The Illinois Department of Revenue extended filing deadlines until Oct. 31 for taxpayers who owe Illinois taxes and are from counties damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

• Illinois established a toll-free line to provide Hurricane Katrina victims with immediate assistance regarding social services offered by the state, including health care, crisis counseling, food stamps, K-12 public school registration, and services for veterans, seniors and people with disabilities. The number, 1 [phone], is staffed by the Department of Human Services.

• A total of 134 highly trained law enforcement officers from state and local agencies were deployed to Louisiana. These include weapons-of-mass-destruction teams, tactical response teams and underwater dive teams, along with a mobile command post, various all-terrain vehicles, boats and trucks.

• The Illinois Department of Transportation contributed 500 yards of fencing and 500 stakes on two lowboys pulled by two semis in the law enforcement convoy.

• The governor dispatched a total of 52 members of the Illinois Medical Emergency Response Team to Louisiana to assist with care of the massive number of sick and injured victims from Hurricane Katrina and dispatched an 11-member incident management team to George County, Miss., to assist local emergency managers during the crisis. A 10-member incident management team recently left Springfield to relieve the first group. The newly deployed team includes two employees from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and eight emergency management coordinators from around the state.

• The state's 39 community colleges are accommodating Illinois residents displaced from higher education studies because of the hurricane, while Illinois' 12 public universities are taking in students affected by the destruction along the Gulf Coast.

• For hurricane victims, the Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency have offered free camping and removed length-of-stay requirements at all state parks and historic sites that offer camping.

• The Illinois Department of Transportation waived certain transportation rules to allow standard-sized semis carrying supplies and materials to Louisiana to be overweight by up to 15,000 pounds when they travel on Illinois roads. Currently, a standard-sized semi is allowed to weigh 80,000 pounds when traveling through Illinois. The Department of Transportation will also grant emergency permits to companies that need to move oversized equipment to the affected area.

• The Illinois Department of Corrections made available various items through the Illinois Emergency Management Agency's emergency procurement system, including 256,000 half-pints of water, 8,500 blankets, 18,300 clothing items and 2,900 dozen packages of cleaning supplies. The Department of Corrections has also delivered 3,000 bedrolls to the Red Cross in Hillside.

• The Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs sent toiletries and food to facilities where displaced victims have been housed and, in collaboration with several other federal and private agencies, will send food to the Gulf Coast states.

• The Department of Central Management Services made available its Bureau of Communication and Computer Services to help provide communications assistance to devastated areas. Using broadband services, including high-speed data transmission to remote areas underserved by local carriers, the bureau can provide relief command centers with uplinks for phone and Internet access, and also links to shelters so displaced individuals can call loved ones.

• The Department of Human Services sent staff skilled in processing food stamps, to help the U.S. Department of Agriculture implement a disaster food stamp program in 25 Louisiana counties.

• The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Illinois Department of Public Health dispatched 12 specialists to Louisiana. The specialists are members of four environmental health strike teams being sent by the state at the request of the Louisiana Emergency Management Agency. Their expertise includes drinking water, sewage, food safety and food salvage. In addition, two Illinois Environmental Protection Agency trucks stocked with emergency response equipment and two Department of Public Health vehicles were deployed.

[News release from the governor's office]