Statewide Emergency Exercise Preps Agencies for Severe Weather Event
June 15 2015 - 3:52PM
Business Wire
More than 30 organizations and 100 communities
come together to prepare for worst-case scenarios
In the face of increasingly severe and damaging weather across
the country, ComEd, the Cook County Department of Homeland Security
and Emergency Management (DHSEM), Ameren Illinois and the Illinois
Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) will partner with more than 30
state, county, municipal and private entities for “Operation Power
Play.” Operation Power Play will test how agencies would respond if
a series of severe storms produced 28 tornadoes throughout Illinois
on the same day.
“The recent devastating tornado in Fairdale reminds us that
weather is becoming more severe and unpredictable, underscoring the
need to better understand how we work together to restore critical
services following an extreme weather event,” said Anne
Pramaggiore, President and CEO of ComEd. “ComEd has already
implemented more than 100 storm process enhancements made since
2012 to further improve storm restoration and recovery for our
customers.”
While Operation Power Play will be held in multiple locations
throughout Illinois, the primary site is Cook County’s new
Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Michael Masters, executive
director of the DHSEM says his agency’s partnership with agencies
throughout the state is increasingly important. “We cannot wait for
severe weather to begin the discussion about our response to and
recovery from an incident,” said Masters. “We need to build these
partnerships and run through multiple scenarios so we are
adequately prepared to protect the residents in our
jurisdictions.”
During the exercise, ComEd will coordinate a comprehensive,
multi-agency response to storm-damaged areas with a number of
partner agencies participating both onsite at the Cook County’s EOC
– which can accommodate personnel from multiple municipalities and
private sector partners - and remotely at locations all around the
state. The exercise will kick off at 9 a.m. on June
19 with remarks from Cook County Board President Toni
Preckwinkle, ComEd President and CEO Anne Pramaggiore, ComEd
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Terence R.
Donnelly, Ameren Illinois Director of Distribution Operating Rick
Welton and Illinois Commerce Commission Chairman Brien Sheahan. The
Cook County EOC is located on the 340-acre Oak Forest Health Center
campus, 15900 S. Cicero Ave., Oak Forest.
Following the exercise, participants will meet to review
processes, discuss lessons learned and look for opportunities for
improvement.
Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) is a unit of Chicago-based
Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC), the nation’s leading competitive
energy provider, with approximately 6.6 million customers. ComEd
provides service to approximately 3.8 million customers across
northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state’s population. For
more information visit ComEd.com, and connect with the company on
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The Cook County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency
Management integrates first responders, their departments and
resources from 134 Cook County municipalities, and serves as the
central agency in Cook County for coordinating efforts to prevent,
protect against, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and recover
from all incidents, whether man-made or natural. For more
information, visit our website at
www.cookcountyhomelandsecurity.org.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150615006370/en/
ComEdLiz Keating, 312-394-4111 (o)312-848-0176 (m)orCook County
Department of Homeland Security and Emergency ManagementNatalia
Derevyanny, 312.718.4125
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