On Wednesday, February 11, the Macon-Bibb County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) held a Tabletop Training Exercise with departments and disaster response partners. They each represented their agencies and their roles and responsibilities in the removal of debris from the community following severe weather like a hurricane or tornadoes.

“Post-disaster debris removal is one of the most expensive parts of the recovery process and there are many moving parts,” said EMA Deputy Director Robert McCord, who will be leading the Exercise. “We need to not only walk through the county’s actions but also discuss how we would work with our contractors who manage the removal.”

The exercise had representatives from EMA, Solid Waste, Public Works, Parks & Beautification, Attorneys’ Office, Procurement, IT, Communications, Finance, Code Enforcement, the Macon Water Authority, Georgia Power, the Middle Georgia Regional Commission, private contractors, and the Georgia Emergency Management Association.

Partners walked through their roles in preparing for a disaster and how operations would be set up in an emergency. They then broke into groups for a simulation focused on the hours immediately following severe weather, covering response actions, public communications, and documentation procedures. Emphasis was placed on accurately tracking hours and expenses, a critical step in securing state and federal funding.

The most recent situation where a debris removal plan was implemented on a wide scale was following Hurricane Irma, which was a Tropical Storm when it impacted Macon-Bibb. There was nearly 100,000 cubic yards of debris that had to be removed from the ground, which took 137 days, or more than four and a half months.

With the EMA coordinating the effort and working with departments and contractors on federal and state guidelines and understanding the proper paperwork, Macon-Bibb was able to recover $2,656,360, or nearly 90 percent of all the funds spent on debris removal.

Irma and the level of details required in the recovery process also showed the partners the need to practice the process and have all the partners and contractors identified before another similar storm impacted the area. While those have been in place since Irma, this Exercise provided a great opportunity to practice the knowledge, identify any areas where there could be improvement, and ensure a smooth recovery should the need arise again.