Planning for the Unplanned 'Is What We Do'

In a disaster, Nick Crossley says there's no such thing as 'no.' In Episode 9, the Hamilton County Emergency Management Agency Director talks about the biggest challenge he faced during the early days of the local COVID-19 pandemic. 

"If you ever call me, I'm saving your cell number," says Crossley who discusses how he gets around the word "no" in order to find a way. He also details the quick partnerships that formed overnight to protect the most vulnerable including seniors. 

Crossley's agency administers emergency management and disaster preparedness functions for all of Hamilton County and its political subdivisions. This may be the ultimate episode- we can't think of a better department  to spotlight on a COVID-19 podcast. Have a listen!

To learn more about Hamilton County, Ohio, our services and job openings, visit hamiltoncountyohio.gov.

Transcript

Jeff Aluotto  0:09  
Welcome to heart and hustle in Hamilton County, a podcast about the people places and policies that govern our local response to the covid 19 outbreak. I'm your host, Jeff saludo. I'm county administrator with Hamilton County, and I'm here with my co host, as always Communications Manager Bridget Doherty bridges.

We will be discussing the issues challenges and opportunities that Hamilton County faces as we battled this global pandemic. And Bridget today is a seminal day in the history of heart and hustle. We are finally going to talk emergency management in Hamilton County. I'm really excited about this episode long awaited exciting emergency management. We have with us today the director of the Hamilton County Emergency Management Agency, Nick Crossley. And truthfully, we would have had Nick on a lot sooner, but we are in the middle of an emergency right now. And so it's been a little bit tough to get this gentleman's time over the past several months. So Nick, welcome to the program. And why don't we start off just by for folks who are listening to this podcast and may be pretty new to the business of government as a whole.

Talk to us a little bit about what is emergency management.

Nick Crossley  1:26  
So emergency management, as I explain, especially to all the elected leaders we work with is in simple terms, getting people to think about things they don't want to think about spend money they think they don't have on something they hope will never happen. And so on the other side, our job as an emergency management agency for Hamilton County, is to work with the all 49 communities in the private sector and the nonprofit's and our residents to simply be prepared to for disasters and the hazards that face Hamilton County, and then to work on before the disaster happened to make sure that we can recover as a community. It's gotta be it's gotta be a challenging job, though, Nick, because as you said, I mean, obviously, we're now in COVID. And everybody can see that. Preparation is obviously a great thing. Planning is a great thing. But it's got to be very difficult. It when things are going very well, to convince people that

it's a, it's a daily challenge. We wait, especially with a global pandemic. I think a lot of people, especially somebody like me, who thinks about this stuff every day, we we of course, knew it could happen. It happened in 1918. We just didn't or didn't perhaps didn't want to realize that there was a there was an issue that could effectively take out global mutual aid. So our system is built on the fact that we have local to county to state to federal to international assistance available. And several of the key supplies and support that we would normally bring in.

Even if we couldn't get it in Ohio, we have the entire United States to bring it in from and that wasn't available. And so it required, thankfully in this region, especially when it comes to healthcare, there was a lot of cross pollination between various professions,

both within healthcare and outside of healthcare. And so we had those relationships going in. But still the global breadth and impact of the pandemic probably went beyond any of us could imagine.

Bridget Doherty  3:43  
 So Nick, take paint a picture for us, like when you first knew that this was coming last year, what was kind of going through your head, 

Nick Crossley  3:52  
we started we started sort of paying attention in February, and then in toward the middle of March, when a lot of the lockdowns happened. Again, it was still hard. I think in a lot of people's minds to see that they're that that effectively there would be little assistance that that could be provided from outside of our in within our normal mutual aid system, even our private sector system would be able to purchase goods and supplies became a

we'll just call it an incredibly competitive market. And so you know, especially by, I would say by early April, within a couple of weeks of everybody starting to talk about this.

That's when it really hit home for a lot of people that this was different. And I mean, you've always got the ones who were probably saw into February, Early Middle March, okay, this is going to be big, but you have to understand that you know, at our agency, we deal with all hazards and dealing with the consequences management of all hazards. So while we were working on the beginning of the pandemic, which is again led by public health and

In our healthcare field, and we're a support to them, we also have to deal with normal spring weather in in Ohio. And so we were watching severe wind events, possible tornadic activity, flooding, we had flooding last year, we have we've had quite a bit activity landslides. And so we watch all of that. And make sure that we're prepared to provide assistance to any of our communities that might need it. But also, so while we're communicating with the state and the federal government on pandemic related issues, we're also communicating about natural hazards and things like that. And of course, then we also deal with the manmade hazards like hazardous material spills. So it's it's it's a broad swath of things we're keeping out all at the same time. So for people who might not again know the the direct business of government, Nick,

talk a little bit about what your office is involved in on a day to day basis as it relates to managing and dealing with the COVID pandemic specifically. So dealing with the COVID pandemic, we were really multiple different lines. So we obviously started at the request of Hamilton County Public Health became the primary distributor of the beginning of the Strategic National Stockpile of personal protective equipment that the federal government distributed nationwide, we had to quickly build a system to manage that inventory, distribute that inventory, notification systems, all that kind of stuff. And we did that local company loaned us warehouse space. So

again, that was an agreement that Hamilton County Public Health had put in place that we took over. So we had the PP and we had to manage that then of course, there was information. So my, one of my key focuses in any disaster is his public internal and external information sharing. So we had to make sure that the messages we were putting out both internally within the county employees and government employees, but also to the public, that we were putting out as much information as possible, and that it was vetted information. So we had to do that. And then at the same time, it's working with all the other county departments as we dealt with the community impacts from the individual residents. And we have over 800,000 residents, the impact to the private sector, the impact to our nonprofits, because we depend on a lot of our nonprofits, for a lot of our social services, and then they were impacted. And so it was just it just became this cascading impact. And I think our, our saving grace was the relationships we had in place before the disaster. So we'd already had a private sector group, we already we know a lot of the nonprofit players. So we already had communication with them. And then, of course, the Hamilton County is, while a large employer

has always been a big supporter of emergency management. And so I had already, I knew all the directors in Hamilton County. And so we could, one of the key things we can do is pick up the phone and get ahold of somebody. And I think that was key. So the relationships that Hamilton County already had within the social service safety net, but it was. And so we're managing all of that and trying to keep our finger on things. And, and so again, we're a Support Agency. So a lot of times we're not primary, but trying to fill those holes or bring people in to fill those holes. That's when we get called by people.

Jeff Aluotto  8:24  
Where you were a primary is in the area of PP distribution, as you said, so personal protective equipment, everything from masks, hand sanitizer, gloves, etc. Where you guys really stepped in and filled that role for the community. Because as you said, the markets for these things were just going haywire last year, and people just couldn't, you couldn't buy the stuff. I mean, it was almost unfathomable when you think about our society today, but you couldn't go to the store and buy this stuff. So talk to us a little bit about

Nick Crossley  9:01  
that operation that you ran, and how that worked, and how much stuff you actually gave out to the community, etc. You know, it's interest. We were talking before we started on what is a unique situation we faced and one of the most unique situation we faced and we realize this if everybody remembers, you couldn't get to the store fast enough to get toilet paper, and cleaning supplies, right? So we were actually the Council on Aging, called us and said, can you help because our senior citizens can't This was before they had seen your hour and all that kind of stuff. And so she called us and said, Can you help us help our senior citizens of Hamilton County. And so we started looking at what was needed. So it was basic cleaning supplies, toilet paper, paper towels, some of these really just

things that that help you stay healthy. And plus the elderly didn't want to leave their homes. I mean, so that was the other challenge. And so, I actually again reached out to our network started talking to I

At the time, were only an eight person staff but I assigned to to the PP operation full time and start talking to them and I started talking to Hamilton County purchasing and to aging. And while we could not get as I like to say Sharman to be distributed, we could get the the commodities that we use in government daily operations. And so since a lot of government had gone remote, we didn't really need have all the supplies that we had had. So working with Hamilton County purchasing, we gathered a lot of those supplies, had them delivered to our warehouse, we had cleaning supplies, and toilet paper and paper towels and, and all this kind of stuff. And then we because again, because of COVID, we couldn't allow volunteers to come into the warehouse because it was all still an operating private business. So we got the boxes, we ordered boxes, and then my staff at the warehouse created to go boxes for elderly residents of Hamilton County for Hamilton County, for the Council on Aging, we put together the boxes for them. And then they came in pick them up. And we did that for about two months, until the Kroger and other companies started creating SR ours. And we could still see that however, we went from creating those boxes ourselves and putting them together for people these these care packages, if you will, to still to this day helping all of our major providers and human service agencies like Council on Aging, distribute supplies, because then they became available, but then the price got out of control. Right. So again, and one of the reasons that we've continued our PP operation one that became really critical because we've serviced over almost 500 individual organizations, many of them multiple times, from the mom and pop nonprofits, the

basic community service provider to the two major nursing homes and medical practices, we have continued to distribute. Because again, the price is still getting back to that level. And making sure that the most vulnerable in our society are taking care of has been our primary concern. So it's not necessarily I mean, relatively speaking, we've taken both donated supplies, we ran a Huge donation operation in Hamilton County residents stepped up and donated a lot of PP and other supplies. Then Hamilton County bought some we got some from the state. And then we have continued that so that the Council on Aging, that's almost one of the best things that and my staff didn't

didn't say a word, they just put together the boxes put together care kits and division on Ag and distributed them. 

Bridget Doherty  12:29  
I think that's what floors me the most about this is that your staff is a staff of eight and your work output was huge, because especially when, you know, COVID first hit, and we were all remote, and we were doing constant meetings by zoom or by conference call you were leading all of those meetings and doing all the work as well. So how did your staff actually fare during, you know, the past year? Because it seems like they've been doing nothing but cranking out work product this entire time?

Nick Crossley  12:57  
 Yeah, I mean, it's so again, this is what we do. Right? So

it, it was a stretch. So there were days when even I would hit a wall and and have to take a break. But they really stepped up and really did what we had to do. Because again, and it's one of the things I've stressed to local governments as well as county government agencies is that the business of government doesn't stop because you're dealing with an emergency. We provide lots of services to our communities and our residents. And so the staff have been phenomenal while still completing their their normal duties. So at the same time, I apologize. At the same time. That's awesome.

It makes sure I hear it at 2am. Not everybody does that like I do. But I think thatwe they stepped up, we had lots of conversations. So I spent a lot of time and I meet with my staff on a regular basis. And I was thinking the other day, we didn't have a single COVID experience. And within our staff even though we were in the office, we've never we've worked a few days remote here and there. But for the most part, everybody's been in the office. And they stepped up they understand this is this is what we do.

And unlike a lot of people, we actually see it as a valuable learning experience. Whereas other people may I'm tired and we're tired too. But for us, it allows us to sort of show people this is why you have emergency manager This is why it's in the Ohio revised code that you have an emergency manager. This is why as a large urban county we need an effective and aggressive agency out there keep an eye on the ball because a lot of people again the business of government is very wide and very vast and and we're sort of that watchdog that every now and then pops up and starts chirping in your ear. That that don't forget you know we

Have these things to deal with. So during COVID, they really did. But every, you know, every week we do a staff meeting. And I would, I would just remind, even though we're my managers say, Please, when you go home, remember, you're coming back into the office, we don't need to get infected. If you need something, I would still try to encourage people to take vacations, although we all couldn't go anywhere.

And I always supported time off, you know, around the holidays.

You know, I have some employees that don't live here. And so we made sure they had extra time where they could work remote, but go home. So it's really keeping in touch with how people's mental health is going. And then, of course, you know, over time, we developed a rhythm. So we started out really with our fingers and a lot of pies, the alternative care site, pp, communicating with county leadership on what's the direction we should go in, participate in various communities. And then we still had to continue the business of emergency management. So we split up like that. 

Jeff Aluotto  15:55  
What out of all, when you think back on this, Nick, what what was the biggest challenge?

Nick Crossley  16:03  
Probably the biggest challenge was just meeting a lot of people I had never met before this, this incident happened. So people,

you know, a lot of people even to this day, you know, we've been around for an existence for 60 years, right? Like, oh, we have an emergency management agency. And but then, you know, the philosophy is also is do what you say you're going to do. And if you can't do it, have a conversation about why you can't do it. And so the biggest challenge was, was letting people know that we were here and that we're here to help. I know, God, we're government, we're here to help. But that's truly what we were here to do. And so, and then the other challenge, and I was telling, Bridget, this is that in a disaster, I have a hard time hearing the word no. So because I believe that, you know, if there's a need out there, there's probably a way we can figure out how to try to deal with that need. And it may not be throwing channels, but you keep calling different people and other people know people, and then eventually you deal with the issue so that the challenge was just just, you know, we thought we'd met a lot of people and then COVID hit.

Bridget Doherty  17:04  
What was your, what was your mantra? Instead of No, like, what would you tell people that were having questions wanting help?

Nick Crossley  17:13  
Well, if I heard no, from somebody, I would say, well, who else can I call? So I will keep going up the chain. That's why if you ever call me with your cell phone, I'll save your cell phone number.

But that was sort of the mantra and say, Well, I hear what you're saying. But what what could be another way that we can work this out? Because you what COVID has shown me is that we had this whole debate, we have this whole debate about essential workers. And, and there's people that you know, have more publicly facing or public safety jobs, and those are essential. But what we found, I think, in COVID, is that everybody's essential, the sheer impact of people losing their jobs and having to be on unemployment and the mental stress of not knowing when it was going to end.

It's really shown me and it's really, you know, I've reached out to some different county programs that I've never had in contact with, because I've realized, there's a lot of vulnerabilities out there, there's a lot of need.

And it's through No, nobody's fault. And so we just have to keep moving with that. And so that's what I would do. If I were if we'd have a unique need. I would just keep calling people until I could find an answer. And then at the end of the day, if I couldn't find an answer, I would call Jeff a Ludo. And say, you've been here forever, who can I call? And after you got no answer for me, you would, we would put our heads together and figure out where to go from there. Right. So now that you've been doing this for a year, Nick,

Jeff Aluotto  18:35  
and you've you know, and by all accounts, I think you guys have have just performed magnificently. I mean, I can't thank you all enough for for everything that you have done, personally in your entire team to help this community weather this storm, and you've been flexible. You you've been persistent. And I think by all accounts from from a, you know, when, when your industry does, conferences and, and, and

papers on this in the future, the Hamilton County will have acquitted itself well, from an emergency management perspective and a planning perspective. That being said, as you have looked as you monitor, there's for the past year and if you've worked as you've worked with this for the past year, there will be a next time may not be a pandemic but there is going to be something that happens. What do we need? What do you what have you learned from this that we need to do next time that maybe we you hadn't thought of before? Or where where do you see that the gaps in the system that we need to shore up for next time?

Nick Crossley  19:48  
So an X ray, I want to start a process to really gather these thoughts, but I think that

it's really taking a look at

the policies and procedures that we haven't handled okay.

That allows us to move quickly and nimbly.

It's

taking what we learned especially about communicating with the public. We have since the beginning of this event, Commissioner Driehaus and now Commissioner Driehaus, Commissioner Reese, do weekly updates to the public.

We do weekly meetings with all of our communities and offer that to all of our communities so that they're in the loop and because the, again, staying in contact with our 49 communities gets us closer to the resident, I think taking all that work we did to develop that system

is going to be key. And then also, we're remembering and what we could do to be better prepared to take care of individual residents who might need our assistance. That's something that that I'm already looking at, is there. If there's not a reason to stockpile should we be just make sure we have contracts in place and things like that. And then finally, it's continuing and maintaining the buy in from elected and high level appointed officials into being prepared. So our entire program is built around the concept of making sure the county is prepared to assist, and to respond and recover from a disaster that may impact our operations. But then the other part of our program is to offer and be available and help any of our communities that choose to accept our assistance, that we're here to help them be as prepared as possible as well. So we're one of the few, we're very fortunate in Hamilton County, although we do do it with a limited staff. But our program is built to to help all of those levels, be prepared as prepared as possible. And then continue our outreach and connection with our social service providers and our nonprofits in the county. So those who are focused, 

Jeff Aluotto  21:41  
that's it's really interesting to hear you say that, and what really strikes me. And we're obviously in sports season again, right? You know, we got baseball going on, we got the NFL Draft going on. So

the things that you're talking about are not the homerun balls, they're they're not the they're not the they're not the Hail Marys. It really is the the blocking and tackling. It's not, it's not big new facilities that we need. It's not huge new programs, what you're talking about the we need to continue to do. And what will better prepare us for next time is all of that work on a daily basis, putting in place your things is as

mundane as policies and procedures to make sure that the county can act nimbly, to make sure that we are doing the work of everyday reaching out to elected officials and other folks in the community to make sure they understand how things are going to work. And that's what you guys do on a daily basis. Right. So it's really doing more of what you've preached from the day that you got here. Yeah, I think that and again, it's just reminding everybody that we are here to help, but there are 49 communities. And so we have limited ability to do face to face. But I think we have, I always tell people with good leadership, you can get through anything. But wouldn't it be better if you plan, train and exercise, and slowly but surely, we're starting and I do that without I don't want to come across as the sky is falling. So I don't want to act like you know, the world's gonna end if we don't do x. But however,

Nick Crossley  23:06  
what the complexity of both, especially with, you know, we were just coming out of the economic downturn, and we were all feeling good about it, and then this hit, right. And so we need to be prepared as possible. Understanding that, if nothing else, even if you know how to ask for help, even our smallest communities, right, that are that don't even have a full time staff member, as long as they know who to call for help, then they've taken a step. And then we develop basic plans and procedures for them. Which is why we work again across the swath of public and private resources.

Bridget Doherty  23:42  
Yeah, I think that's so interesting that your agency does the small communities that possibly doesn't have a good staff member, and then also the city of Cincinnati, and corralling everybody in Hamilton County, I mean, it's just a gigantic job. And you know, and not to get too technical, but it's when you when you launch the jig right away, which is the Joint Information Center Center, where we all got together and started talking through communications and strategies and, and getting everybody on the same page, because it's gonna be a little bit of like herding cats, cuz right away, everybody is looking to coordinate their own sectors. Right? So obviously, you know, we have 49 elected bodies, or 50, I guess, with the county, and everybody, you know, and I don't blame them, they want to communicate with their residents. So the point of a jig is to take the information and hand it to them and say, put whatever flavor you want on this, but let's have a consistent message. And, you know, I always tell people that there are three things, there's sort of the backbone of what we try to do and three things that generally can have problems in a disaster, and I've worked hard, and I think this disaster shows,

Nick Crossley  24:52  
especially COVID that we've made a lot of strides and we will continue to make strides because it's an ever improving process. There are three areas that need

Constant work. One is executive decision making. So it's it's working with our elected appointed leaders to say, Hey, we need a decision made, and you have to make it at the time that you make it with the information that you have. And then be prepared to to make a left turn. Right. So it's executive decision making, and then it's taking care of the people. So when you look at disaster after disaster, you again, we don't, we don't necessarily stockpile warehouses for supplies, but we need to know where to get the supplies to help people and it won't be perfect. And it won't be without glitches, you just look at Dayton, and what happened with the tornadoes up there. But we need to be prepared to take care of the people especially because if somebody has no resources, they're the most vulnerable at the time of the disaster. And then finally, is communication, internal and external, which one of the reasons we stood up the jig, because we use that Joint Information Center, to be able to gather the facts from the CDC and from from our various health departments and the other experts put them into a package that we could hand out, we literally created social media messaging, print media, talking points, and we handed it we send it all 49 of our communities, we, we send it to the various county leadership departments, because you want to use the same information to communicate internally with employees, as you do publicly with the public. And so we worked on those and focused on those threats, this entire disaster. So as it relates to communication, Nick, and I'm going to pull this kind of more broadly to the general work of your department and managing emergencies and disasters in, in our in our area. You've always said I love your your motto on this, that

Jeff Aluotto  26:40  
if you live in Hamilton County, and you're not informed, you're not trying. So talk and so that those are big words, right, so So talk about what some of the things that we've put in place here in Hamilton County, to make sure that if you want to get informed and you want to stay updated on things, whether it's weather or COVID, etc, that you can get that information. So we have set up a system in Hamilton County called alert Hamilton County. So obviously, there's lots of private sector, all of our new stations carry alert capability if you have a smartphone, that kind of thing. But we working with my board about four years ago now,

Nick Crossley  27:22  
which includes the three county commissioners and various other elected officials, they asked that we put together an emergency alert notification system and this is at the same time that the county was actually the first entity in the in the in the in the state to buy smart 911. Working with the comp center, again, why we work across departments. So we worked with, we went out to bid and that vendor came back thankfully that the same one that did smart number one and and we have a system now called Lord Hamilton County, which if you go into register, you can register both for award Hamilton County we have 42 major hazards that could impact Hamilton County,

you can sign up for text and email notification on most of them. A few of them allow us to do phone calls, because we can't just call everybody in the county because it would kill the phone system.

And so we will call you text or email you especially for tornado warnings, flash flood warnings if they fall over your home or business, hazardous materials incidences, we have lots of hazmat sites in Hamilton County that we monitor.

And so you have that and then you have smart 911 it's which is a which is a phenomenal system because especially if you want to share information. So for example, in my profile, my wife and I are fairly young, I'm not too worried about us. But I have two dogs, right that I care very deeply for. And so I actually have their pictures and smart now my morning because I want to tell the Cincinnati fire department that if you come to my house, if I'm standing outside and my dogs not next to me, my dog is still in that house, I need you to go get her. Right. And so but a lot of times people use it for their children and my son is my stepson is grown so you know, but and I know many people who actually sign up their elderly parents because they keep an eye on him. And one of the challenges of 911 is that they'll get a call for somebody who's who needs care. And then they won't have any way to contact a caregiver. And so this system allows you to register your parents register anybody else you're taking care of. And you can put down say if you have an emergency call me too.

And so between smart 911 and the Lord Hamilton County, if if and I really do say and I say this publicly if you if you can't get an emergency alert in Hamilton County, you're not trying. And that dovetails with our outdoor warning siren system, which is

tops in the state if not the region, if not the country I've never we have 190 outdoor warning sirens which are meant to be heard only when you're outdoors not meant to be when you heard in a building. And so we encourage people to when you hear those sirens go off, please seek shelter don't pull out your iPhone and start filming.

So that seek shelter and then seek information

So you can find out what's going on. Because they're 99.9% used for a severe weather or for tornadoes, that's we use forest tornado warnings. But we might also use them, we use them in the all star game we set off to down on the banks, because there was a huge Supercell coming through that was going to basically blew up the all those temporary tents down there.

And we wanted people to go indoors. So thankfully they did, we were watching them on the camera.

And then but they could also be used in like a deadly hazmat situation. So so we have the outdoor warning siren systems. And then on top of that, we our system also connects to the Emergency Alert System, the EAS system, which has been around for eons, which is activates television and radio notification. But then it also is the wireless emergency alert, which is the pop up on your cell phone. And we have that in English and Spanish right now. We've worked with an excellent employee, his wife has translated our messages for us into Spanish, thankfully. And so she teaches Spanish so she knows she knows it. But wireless emergency alerts, you really need to have them activated on your phone, we rarely use the system. But it is there both it's the system that the when the Weather Service issued a tornado warning, it will send you an alert based on your cell phone location. So they do it automatically. We use it and we have used it in Hamilton County for life threatening situations. So to the come into mind, our hazmat releases. So hazardous materials releases that we've had to warn the public in a defined area. And then we've used it for

law enforcement situations that were life threatening to a particular area of the county. And so, again, I believe that for the first time in this is a lot of communities are just getting into a lot of this in the last five years. We have a robust system, we train on it every single week. We have eight staff that are that are authorized plus we work with the Hamilton County comm center as our backup. So they can send messaging as well they can activate the auto warning sirens if we needed them to. So we have built a robust system that we are trained on everything is pre scripted. So we are ready to go if an emergency happens. So if someone wants to get subscribed to that hc alert systems, Martin I'm on one, how do they go about doing that all they have to do to go is go to alert hc.org. And they can register if they need assistance with registering, they can call our office at 513263 8200. And there is a way for us either to guide you through at your home or business entering a profile. Or we can do it for you. 

Jeff Aluotto  32:41  
Excellent. Well, Nick, thanks so much for being with us today. And we're not out of the pandemic yet. But thanks for all the work that you and your staff are doing to help get Hamilton County through this through this situation. Thank you. And thanks to all of you for listening to episode eight of heart and hustle in Hamilton County. Subscribe on your Apple podcast, Spotify and other providers. And you can also find this podcast on our website, Hamilton County ohio.gov on the county administrator's page. I'm Jeff Alito county administrator and on behalf of Bridget Doherty. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai