Robert Connolly, Director of Emergency Management, told the Public Safety Committee that coordinated planning and a rapid unified command activation helped the city respond to severe weather that affected several large public gatherings.

Connolly said police identified the events as complex a month in advance and requested a unified command. He described deploying a Worcester Unified Command Center and an event action plan; when severe weather approached the city the department, police and fire briefed event organizers and ultimately issued a wireless emergency alert and canceled at least one event early. "Because we pulled that trigger so early because we notified the public so early, we avoided I don't want to say catastrophe but we we avoided massive injury, mass casualty events," Connolly said.

Connolly described a repurposed trailer funded with FEMA grant dollars that serves as a mobile Emergency Operations Center with workstations, networking, camera systems and climate control. He said the city’s EOC connected with police, fire, EMS, hospitals, public works and utilities within about 40 minutes and that the trailer is available to departments for large events or infrastructure incidents.

The director said after-action planning will include exercises: a December workshop on the comprehensive emergency management plan and a spring multi-agency exercise, plus restarting an annual citywide exercise. He also noted the city's hazard mitigation plan includes an action to evaluate public sirens; Connolly said sirens have fallen out of favor in prior decades because alerting shifted to phones but recent events have renewed interest, subject to funding and planning.

The committee accepted and filed the communication and requested a debrief and further exercise schedules.