Hurricane Sandy Volunteer Scott Gerber

Last Week’s Program…was presented by Scott Gerber, the chief of the Excelsior Fire Department. He was introduced by Woody Love, former mayor of Shorewood who was on the committee who hired Scott.

            As a result of 9/11, every state has an emergency preparedness policy, and a part of that policy is a leadership team that co-ordinates the efforts of the various agencies and services that respond to the incident. Scott is on the Minnesota team, and was deployed to Massachusetts last year in response to a hurricane. This year, when that state was threatened by Hurricane Sandy, the state officials asked for the same team to come to help them. Scott and the four other members of the Minnesota team reported to the state’s underground command post, but the damage in the state was relatively minimal, so they were directed to Albany, New York, to help New York State cope with the storm damage.

        Their task was not to do the hands-on work, but to coordinate resources for the rescuers and make all of the resources available to the workers. From their underground bunker, they made sure that all of the donated goods got sent to the right place, and that the workers knew what was available to them and how to obtain the items.

TRIVIA: Franz Liszt was Richard Wagner’s father-in-law.   The National Lighter Museum in Guthrie, OK, has nearly 20,000 pieces, representing over 85,000 years of lighters and fire starters.  The sound of thunder travels about 1,100 feet a second.   

Next Week: The City Managers of Excelsior, Chanhassen and Minnetonka (Story by Tad Shaw)