Ogden pulls off Emergency Day with non-disastrous glitches
Problems provide needed challenges, city officials say
Because, were it all for real, there would be plenty to worry about. Thursday's planned event just proved that to be true.
The alarm sounded at 2:30 p.m. with a recorded voice telling people to leave City Hall and not to get on the elevators, which are not supposed to work during an emergency. One person managed to ride an elevator, though. And that elevator continued to work.
But city employees mostly got out of City Hall in a timely manner and hurried to their safe zone.
Meanwhile, "suspicious packages" were delivered to several area businesses so they could practice evacuating as well.
The packages were nothing more than wooden boxes spray-painted silver with a picture of a clock attached to some dynamite. A note on the back said "Tag. You're it.">
And while all of that was happening, the city's Information Technology department was operating from a tent on the lawn next to City Hall.
Servers, a copy machine, various laptops and a plotter, all powered by generators, were set up Thursday morning as the department tested itself to see how it would operate in an emergency.
"But we are prepared to set up anywhere and today we're doing it on the lawn," Brummett said.
The practice should help Ogden maintain its top ranking, for its size, as a digital city, a ranking bestowed by the National League of Cities and the Center for Digital Government.
Since 2003, Ogden has placed in the top three digital cities, with two years in first place.
Brummett said his staff had to deal with a late generator, some data recovery that took too long and other data recovery that happened faster than expected.
From 7 a.m., when Brummett began calling employees, it took four hours to be operational.
"If we didn't have the glitches, we wouldn't have challenged ourselves enough to get value out of (the practice,)" he said.
Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey expressed confidence in his employees, some of whom had to improvise to solve certain problems without a normal office.
"It's easy to sit around a room and theorize about what will happen," Godfrey said, adding that experience comes in handy.
Two IT employees, Lew Grant and Eric Weston. volunteered for some extra experience this week by each living off a small 72-hour kit.
Thursday, as the city gave away 72-hour kit starters, hundreds of stove-in-a-can units and other emergency supplies, Grant and Weston talked about what it's like to survive from a 72-hour kit.
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