Effingham Emergency Management

 Story by Gail Parsons 

The call came in like any other emergency — a report of smoke, flames and a fire spreading faster than expected. But for firefighters and emergency managers, a wildfire is never just the fire burning in front of them. It's the question of what happens next.

How fast will the wind shift? How much dry vegetation is waiting to ignite? How close are homes? How many resources will be needed before the situation grows beyond control?

This year those questions became increasingly familiar across Effingham County. A prolonged period of drought created conditions where even routine outdoor burning could become dangerous, and emergency crews responded to multiple wildfires — including several that burned for days and one that stretched beyond 100 acres.

"Unfortunately, this year, Georgia has been suffering an extreme drought," said Hannah Jenkins, Effingham County Fire Department battalion chief. "Normal practices for outdoor burning that people were following just could not keep up with the drought conditions."

The Fight on the Ground

The effects of that drought hit home in April when wildfires started popping up all over Effingham County.

"We had several," said Emergency Management Agency Director Clinton Hodges. "We had a couple of fires go close to 100 acres … some of those lasted for days. It wasn't just a one-day event."

The worst of them threatened buildings as it burned through about 150 acres of land off Springfield Egypt Road. It wasn't long after arriving on scene of that one that Hodges and his team knew this blaze was going to need a little more attention than the others had.

"Right off the rip, we contacted Georgia Forestry and had them come in with a plow," he said. "EMS was called as well because it was hot — heat exhaustion was a problem, and there were also a large number of homes endangered."

They went door-to-door alerting people to the danger. Had more homes been threatened they would have activated the RAVE system, which alerts people by text, email or a phone call. People can sign up to receive the alerts at www.smart911.com.

"If it were to be a large-scale brush fire, or if we needed to evacuate an area, such as we did with Hurricane Debby, we are able to tailor a message that goes out to the community," said Deputy Director Shanna Smith.

Before the last spark was extinguished 149 acres of land were scorched, but not a single home was lost. Effingham crews didn't fight alone. Alongside seven county engines and tankers, Georgia Forestry brought in five plows while neighboring Screven and Bulloch counties sent additional resources.

"There were a couple of weeks that it was almost like every time the tones went off, you had a little bit of a concern, 'Is this the next big brush fire?'" Hodges said. "Especially when the North County tones went off because that's where the majority of the larger brush fires take place, just because there's more open land there."

A Fire Doesn't Stop at County Lines

Effingham County is part of the Emergency Management Association of Georgia. Just as neighboring counties didn't hesitate when the call for mutual aid went out, Effingham jumped in to help as fires raged out of control in Brantley County.

Hodges explained the Effingham County is in Area Five, which is the coastal counties.

"It was the second day of that fire when it went from, I believe, 500 acres and somewhere around 60% contained to 5,000 acres and practically uncontained," he said. "When we found out about that, we reached out directly to Brantley County and asked, 'Is there anything that we can help you out with?'"

The response: "Absolutely. Can you be here in the morning?"

They worked late into the evening and by 5 a.m. the next day a crew were on their way.

"What we had to be cognizant of, though, is making sure that we didn't pull any assets that we might need from here because we still had the same wildfire threat going on in this county," Hodges said. "We utilized a reserve engine and off-duty crews who were going down there on their days off."

Tackling Emergencies Head-On

Every emergency is different, but the philosophy behind responding to them remains consistent. Hodges calls it an "all-hazards approach."

It's not just about the here-and-now, they have to try and stay ahead of where the emergency wants to go.

"From a wildfire perspective, you have similarities to a hurricane because you're having to forecast out what the worst-case scenario is going to be," Hodges said. "For example, the reason we called Bulloch County on the big wildfire — it wasn't necessarily because we needed them right that second. But we had concerns about some wind shifts that were going on or could happen. If that had occurred, we weren't going to have enough resources to stop it where we wanted to. We knew it was going to take them at least 30 minutes to get to us, and if we waited till we needed them, it's out of control."

Managing an emergency effectively requires understanding exactly what is happening. The EEMA team takes a hands-on approach. They could sit in their offices, make phone calls and manage the situation that way. But that's not the way they operate — they jump right into the trenches and don't hesitate to render aid to everyone and everything who needed it.

"After Debby and Helene, we waited for the storm to pass because road conditions were hazardous, but after that, we weren't in the office," Smith said. "We're out surveying, rescuing pigs, and a horse."

She recalled watching the gauges on the Ogeechee River. One moment the water wasn't there. "And then it was," she said.

They started getting calls about water going up in certain neighborhoods, so they headed out to see what was happening.

Immediately they started knocking on doors telling people, 'More than likely, you're not going to be able to come back to your home,'" Smith said.

They ended up on Old River Road. The water was rising quickly and some people who were in their homes all day, had no idea that up river, multiple dams had breached.

The situation was getting serious. They stayed at one house for about an hour while the homeowners collected what they needed to evacuate with.

"We had transportation ready for them to go to the Red Cross shelter that we had open, and I just happened to be on their front step and look over, and there's this 300-pound pot-bellied pig," she said. "It was just kind of there in the landscaping. So, now we have a pig that we have to figure out what to do with."

It took some doing, but they were eventually able to rescue the pig and get it set up at a sanctuary in Metter.

The hands-on approach pays off in the public trust they gain, which translates into a community working together in time of need. During Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Helene people were on social media reporting what they were seeing and where there were people who needed rescuing.

"We were in those communities that were taking on water," she said. "All those people down there, they saw us every single day."

That kind of engagement also allows them to have first-hand information about what is happening on the ground.

"We're not having to wait to find out what people need by word-of-mouth or via social media because we were down there and we know the areas that were impacted and what people were asking for," Smith said. "Salvation Army came and did a cantina at the front of one of the neighborhoods, and we handed out water and Gatorades. We were down there for hours doing that. There's lot of collaboration with our partners and making sure that you know we're here with you versus just managing from a distance."

When part of a critical function goes down, you have to figure out a contingency plan. After an event is often a good time to see what improvements can be made to help mitigate problem areas.

"As you're getting back to normal, take lessons learned," he said. "As you rebuild or you repair, go ahead and build in a little bit of extra steps to prevent that damage the next time."

For example, Tropical Storm Debby damaged some of the county's culverts. When they went out to replace them the county ordered a hydrology study.

"They upsized the pipes, so in the future it could handle that particular volume of water," Hodges said.

Whether it's a brush fire racing across dry timber, rising floodwaters or the next hurricane spinning toward Georgia's coast, emergency management is about seeing beyond the emergency itself.

As Hodges put it, "Everything's not just looking at what you've got going on now; it's looking at what the impacts could be."

In the end, that's the real work — preparing for the emergency people hope never comes.