Perry Council adopts updated emergency operations plan, emphasizes local leadership and wildfire annex

The Perry City Council unanimously approved Resolution 2025-01 on Jan. 23, 2025, adopting a revised Emergency Operations Plan that updates local roles and response procedures and calls for additional annexes including a community wildfire protection plan.

Marshall Blom, the city’s emergency manager, told the council the existing EOP dated from 2016 and that the revision focuses on “broad strokes and the more significant changes” rather than a line‑by‑line rewrite. He described the plan as an all‑hazards framework to organize mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery, and listed public warning, evacuation and sheltering among its core response functions.

The revision clarifies decision‑making authority in urgent situations, Blom said, designating the mayor as the primary local executive decision maker, the mayor pro tem as the next in succession, and (if needed) collaboration between the emergency manager and the city administrator when those elected officials are unavailable. The updated plan also designates a permanent Emergency Operations Center (EOC) location on the upper floor of the Public Works Building and shifts the EOC organization to a departmental model so staff perform roles similar to their everyday jobs during incidents.

Council members asked how the EOP would be activated and whether staff and elected officials are familiar with NIMS/ICS. Blom said activations would usually be triggered by dispatch or the county emergency manager and that the National Incident Management System and the Incident Command System have been standard in emergency services for more than 20 years. He told the council the city had recently been added to the county’s Everbridge mass‑notification system and, for severe incidents, could request messages through the county’s IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System).

Blom noted he would remove a list of private businesses and contact information from the main plan and instead keep those contacts in a communications annex or within the EOC support materials. He also proposed bringing the state Division of Natural Resources (DNR) to a future meeting to present on the cooperative wildfire system and to develop a community wildfire protection plan as a wildfire annex to the EOP.

Council members supported scheduling a review exercise and training tied to a planned regional “shakeout” drill this spring. The council also agreed to arrange a council‑level work session to walk through the full document and to circulate county‑administered ICS training for elected officials when specific dates are available.

By motion and unanimous roll call, the council approved Resolution 2025‑01 to adopt the updated Emergency Operations Plan, with votes recorded as Yes from council members Walker, Osler, Wright and Tueller.