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Amalio Jusino, who chairs the North Berkshire Contingency Planning Committee, is working this spring to coordinate arrivals at a vaccination clinic in North Adams.
Three emergency response centers are operational in Berkshire County to help residents deal with Tropical Storm Henri. After the first preparations are done, they wait for what will happen today and Monday – whatever.
“You can only plan until now – and then you respond,” said Jay R. Green, city administrator of Adams.
Amalio Jusino, chairman of the North Berkshire Contingency Planning Committee, said an operations center opened at 8 a.m. on Sunday at North Adams Airport. Officials used the final hours before the storm arrived to establish communications with emergency centers in Pittsfield and Great Barrington, as well as coordinate a call with officials in its eight member cities, as well as Williams College , Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and Berkshire Health Systems.
Justino said the center has also opened its web portal to state and federal emergency response officials.
The equipment has been moved to the preferred shelter in North Adams, in St. Elizabeth’s Parish in Hungary at 70 Marshall Street in case people need to be evacuated. Transport partners have also been informed to be ready.
The regional centers are in close contact with both Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but also with each other, so that Berkshire County responders can help each other.
“We want to streamline the operation so as not to flood MEMA,” Jusino said.
By late Sunday morning, the storm’s track suggested the Berkshires would see heavy rain, on the west side of central Henri, but less punitive winds than expected. A flood eve is in effect.
Flooding remained the most likely risk, although power losses are still possible due to falling trees and tree branches.
“We could be spared the wind, but not the rain,” Green said.
Jusino said DPW teams in the area got ahead of Henri because heavy rains this summer prompted them to clear the culverts. “In this regard, we feel very good,” he said.
In Adams, the DPW worked Friday to check and clean the flood control gutters to allow the free flow of stormwater. Yet because it sits in a valley between two mountain ranges, Adams is prone to flooding, particularly in the Line Street area, Green said on Sunday.
A meeting in March 2020 of the Northern Berkshire COVID-19 Response Center command center. From left to right, Bruce Shepley, volunteer safety officer, Steve Meranti, North Adams fire chief, Amalio Jusino, emergency operations coordinator, and John Meaney, general manager of Northern Berkshire EMS. Justino says the pandemic has helped create a team spirit among emergency operations officials that can serve the current response to Tropical Storm Henri.
Infrastructure improvements since Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 have reduced, but not eliminated, the possibility of flooding in Adams.
Due to recent rains, however, Henri’s precipitation is more likely to run off than to be absorbed by the soil, leading local authorities to be wary of flooding, according to Jusino.
The cities covered by the North Adams operations center include this city as well as Adams, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Florida, New Ashford, Savoy and Williamstown.
The Southern Berkshire Emergency Planning Committee, at Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington, provides services to 12 communities: Alford, Egremont, Great Barrington, Monterey, Mount Washington, New Marlborough, Otis, Sandisfield, Sheffield, Stockbridge, Tyringham and West Stockbridge .
The Pittsfield Fire Department manages emergency operations for the Central Berkshires.
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