Shelburne to practice emergency management plan

SHELBURNE, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont towns are better prepared for worst-case scenarios thanks to their emergency management plans. The Vermont Emergency Management Center helps town leaders come up with their plans and in some towns, the exercises and discussions are ongoing.

At the end of May, the town of Shelburne is hosting a regional exercise to prepare for catastrophic situations related to railways. The tabletop exercises are discussion-based where a scenario is posed and the group discusses their role in responding.

“We’re going to talk about sheltering and we’re going to talk about evacuating from an area. We’re going to talk about the different resources, both within the town as well as external to the town, and how those communications would work between the towns and what sort of requests towns would make of one another during a response. It’s not just the hazmat component of whatever has spilled out of that train or what potential fires occur, but also the evacuation and sheltering and communication, and then the clean up afterward,” said Emily Harris with Vermont Emergency Management.

These exercises are funded by federal dollars and are not required but towns can request them. Recent exercises included one at Rutland Airport, Burlington International Airport.

The next full-scale mock rehearsal exercise is in October 2024, where southern Vermont agencies will be testing resources and communication techniques.

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