On the last day of Hurricane Season this year, November, 31st the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Emergency Management Department conducted a hurricane themed Table Top Exercise (TTX) through working in close collaboration with staff from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and students from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA). Through these collective efforts and in large part of MEMA and MMA we completed our Tribes very first TTX assisted local stakeholders through reviewing, discussing and refining the Standard Operating Procedures, response plans, mutual aid agreements, public warning system and coordination with emergency management. The audience for the TTX was the MWT Tribal Emergency Response Task Force Members (TERTF), Tribal Leadership in addition to Federal and State partners.
Two new emergency response vehicles were acquired through approved Federal grant funding. These vehicles will be primarily utilized in support of incident response within the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Community.
Assistance was provided to Tribal elder and vulnerable members during storm response and recovery. A fallen tree was removed from the Tribal Chiefs driveway and a heating issue was resolved in an elders home during the extreme cold spell.
Coordination and discussions with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Aeronautics Division have begun in regards to a partnership involving a drone program that will benefit our Tribal community and surrounding communities. The MWT Emergency Management Department is in the process of establishing a Small Unmanned Aircraft (drone) program through the utilization of approved Federal grant funding that will be utilized for search and rescue in addition to pre/post disaster damage assessments.
Notifications were provided to the Tribal community via mass alert notifications, social media regarding winter storms and extreme cold updates. Conference calls with County, State partners and TERTF members were held in coordination of winter storm response and support.
A draft logic model was completed for the planning of the Tribes first AmeriCorps program that is being established and will focus primarily on disaster services and disaster intervention and will be the first ever Tribal AmeriCorps program with this focus on the eastern half of the US.
A brief presentation was conducted to Tribal elders during a lunch and learn on winter preparedness, home heating safety as well as frostbite and hypothermia prevention.
A winter preparedness coat drive was established for the Tribal youth and coats will be distributed to those in need.
New collaboration efforts were established with the US Coast Guard (USCG) and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) in regards to the required preparedness and response measures needed to safeguard our Tribal shellfish beds and natural resources in the event of an oil spill. An oil spill response exercise for 2018 in collaboration with Barnstable County Incident Management, the Town of Mashpee, USCG, MDEP and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe is now in the preliminary planning phase.
