The Piermont Emergency Management program involves many town departments that come together to respond to and assist our residents who are placed in danger due to a major disaster, emergency event, attack, fire, flood, snowstorm, hurricane, tornado, public health crisis, medical trauma or any other occurrence requiring fast, professional emergency response from Piermont emergency departments.

Piermont Emergency Management is directed by Brandon Alling as well as the Piermont Board of Selectmen, Colin Stubbings, Randy Subjeck and Wayne Godfrey; Fire Department Chief Bruce Henry and his staff; Road Agent Frank Rodimon; Medical Department FAST Squad Captain Ellen Putnam and her staff of EMT personnel; Animal Control Officer Wayne Godfrey; Piermont Village School board members, along with Principal Bruce Labs and staff.

In the event of an emergency, these departments come together to reduce threats to the residents of the Town of Piermont by providing a total array of emergency services through response and recovery assistance.

Piermont Emergency Management has been fortunate along many fronts, particularly in dealing with weather incidents that have impacted the town. Over the span of the program, we have experienced several ice storm warnings and tropical storms or hurricane events that caused us to activate our Emergency Operations Center to a Level 2 (Medium) or Level 3 (Highest) operational status. As usual, the town came through all those events without any serious problems.

The Emergency Operations Center is maintained inside the fire department office across from the Old Church Building on Route 10 and in the event of an emergency, certain personnel report there to assist with communications, operational aspects of the emergency and gathering additional community resources, if needed.

The town is very fortunate to have two emergency shelters that are ready and staffed should emergency incidents have required sheltering some of our residents who would have had to leave their homes for any number of reasons at any time of the day or night. No matter the weather, we would have been ready to receive them and care for them!

One of the shelters is at the Piermont Congregational Church, located at 15 Church Street, while the second is at the Piermont Village School on Route 10, beside the Old Church Building. Key personnel at the shelters include Rob Elder as shelter manager with the excellent assistance of Reverend Mal Kircher and a staff of several volunteers.

The church shelter, like the School, has an emergency generator and with the assistance from the American Red Cross, has supplies of food, water, cots and blankets. The 14 folks who volunteered as shelter assistants are all Red Cross trained and ready for any incident in the region.

The modern concept of Emergency Management really began to become a distinct organization after the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Today, it is an important organization that works with and helps coordinate the efforts of local units responding to any incident or disaster.

In Piermont, we work closely with the offices of Homeland Security, New Hampshire Emergency Management and Field Agent Paul Hatch and a staff of additional professionals that have been a part of our local program since it was adopted several years ago.

Your local Emergency Management Response Team includes the above-mentioned town departments who, depending on the problem, come together to provide resources and leadership to meet any problem that can range from a weather-related incident, motor vehicle event, fire, ice storm, weapons incident or any other occasion where our residents have been placed at risk.

Emergency Management maintains a hefty training schedule, especially through the National Emergency Management Institute and through other response and tactical units in New Hampshire. Local responders meet continually through the year to study and discuss a wide range of scenarios that could happen in a town such as Piermont.

Some of the topics and subjects your Emergency Management Director and Deputy Director have studied through the institute and other state seminars and conferences include Workplace Violence, 6 Modules of The Incident Command System, Active Shooter, Designing Effective Training Exercises, Emergency Operations Center Management, Emergency Management Leadership, Problem Solving, Effective Emergency Communication, Managing Volunteers, Community Preparedness, Tactical Response for Critical Incidents, IED Awareness, Bomb Threat Workshop, Response Planning for School Violence, Weather Patterns and Hurricanes, Disaster Management, Cyber Security, Critical Infrastructure Study and Counter Terrorism.

We appreciate all the support of our townspeople who have contacted Emergency Management to offer their personal resources for emergency work, also to generous people who volunteer at the emergency shelter (age range of volunteers is 12 years through 80 years!) and others who have shown support and assistance with this program.

Brandon Alling
Director, Emergency Management