PENNSYLVANIA MUST FIX MISTAKES, O'PAKE SAYS
FOLLOWING HEARING ON SNOW STORM DEBACLE

          Harrisburg, February 23, 2007 -- The state response to the Valentine’s Day snow and ice storm was mind-boggling, state Senator Michael A. O’Pake said, and shows that clearer leadership and better communications are needed during emergencies.
          “There’s no acceptable reason for it to take hours to notify motorists about conditions like the ones that caused the tie-ups,” said O’Pake.
          The heads of the Department of Transportation (PennDOT), State Police, Pennsylvania National Guard and Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) answered questions about their agencies’ actions during a joint hearing on Thursday by the Senate Transportation and Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness committees.
          “We can’t have the state respond to crisis by committee,” O’Pake, the Senate Democratic Whip said.  “The reason we have an emergency management agency is to take charge in situations like this.
          “This certainly was an emergency but where was the management? No one stepped forward and took overall charge and thousands of motorists were stranded.”
          A lack of coordination between the National Guard and PennDOT caused many motorists taken to shelter by Guardsmen to be hit with hefty towing fees when PennDOT later had their vehicles removed to clear the highways. Troopers responded to the multiple accidents that caused the closings as individual incidents because ineffective communications internally and with PennDOT failed to alert them that a more widespread problem had developed.
          The chain of dominoes initially began to fall when PennDOT prepared and responded ineffectively in the areas where the storm caused closings; and PEMA was insufficiently proactive and aware of the situation, and did not take charge of the response until events cascaded well out of control of the individual agencies.
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