Mayor Accepts American Red Cross Award
Mayor Accepts American Red Cross Award in Hartford
(March 20, 2015) East Hartford, CT – On Friday morning, Mayor Marcia A. Leclerc accepted the 2015 Community Resilience Hero award from the American Red Cross Connecticut Chapter for her work towards becoming the “model” for emergency preparedness at the 16th Annual Community Heroes Breakfast in Hartford.
The award, which was sponsored by Webster Bank and presented by the Commissioner of Emergency Services and Public Protection Dora Schriro and Senior Vice President of Webster Bank Larry Selnick, recognized Mayor Leclerc and all her efforts towards mastering emergency situation management.
The award came as an honor for Mayor Leclerc and the town, which has taken strides towards protecting the citizens of East Hartford.
“We are just really excited about being selected as a Connecticut Hero,” Mayor Leclerc said in a video presented at the breakfast. “We’ve had a series of weather-related incidents, the first being Storm Alfred, which dropped a significant amount of snow, and shut down roads and brought a significant amount of conditions that the town hadn’t seen before and the state hadn’t seen before in a number of years. Then we had a hurricane, we had an earthquake and then we also had an October snowstorm that shut the state down.”
That October snowstorm, which occurred in 2011, was one of the first weather events which opened the Emergency Operations Center for the first time in nearly 30 years.
During the Halloween Storm of 2011, wet, heavy snow took out trees and power lines, leaving East Hartford without power for a week. In response, Mayor Leclerc opened the Emergency Operations Center and appointed Fire Chief John Oates as Incident Manager. During the power outages, the EOC was opened for a week and emergency shelters were opened at the High School, Town Hall and Fire Station 5.
From that event, the town invested in Everbridge communication software, which now serves as an “event specific” communications vehicle, getting valuable updates to all enrolled community members, including closures, shelter locations and where to call in the event of an emergency.
Mayor Leclerc stated that Everbridge was an important step towards ensuring that a clear communications channel was available to the citizens of East Hartford.
“The last line of communication we have would be through a messaging system,” Mayor Leclerc said. “Purchasing the Everbridge system enabled us to be in touch with our residents at any time, with the stroke of a few fingers and even from our iPhones.”
In addition to the Mayor speaking at the event, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy introduced the Workplace Hero award, recognizing United Technologies Corporation and Senator Richard Blumenthal presented the Military Hero award at the breakfast.
Mayor Leclerc wanted to thank the American Red Cross for the award and everything that they do to help out in emergency situations and for recognizing the Town of East Hartford.
“Working together, we can accomplish more, and we are just happy to have had the experience and outcomes as a result,” Mayor Leclerc said. “So thank you to the American Red Cross and all that they do in our community and how they came forward to help us during these times— we’ll always remember that.”
Mayor Leclerc said that without a team of people, the advances that have been made towards emergency preparedness would have not been possible.
“Coordinating all of this is a team effort,” Mayor Leclerc said. “I just wanted to recognize all my directors, CERT team members and the countless volunteers for all they have done to make this award possible.”