The Galesburg/Knox County Emergency Management Agency is holding an educational presentation and mock tornado scenario ahead of tomorrow’s Galesburg City Council meeting.
KCEMA Coordinator Tom Simkins tells WGIL he will start at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow in Emergency Operations Center of the Galesburg Public Safety Building with a talk on what the agency is and the council’s role during a disaster.
“Then we’re going to do kind of a mock operational briefing that’s based on a fictitious tornado we’ve called the tornado for the last 2 years, hitting Galesburg,” Simkins says.
The mock “Burgnado” is an F-4 that hits town during the noon hour. The operational briefing is set two hours after the tornado strikes.
Simkins says the presentation will also go into the role Council plays in a disaster scenario. He says in an emergency situation, aldermen and city officials would be granted more power and policies would be altered.
“Things like changing some of the spending policies,” Simkins says. “If we’re in need of a lot of chainsaws or something we don’t want to have to wait two weeks or a month, like the normal purchasing policy would be.”
A City news release says the KCEMA has held 35 Burgnado workshops over the last two years.
