Seneca County EMA outlines 2026 trainings, new equipment and 911 upgrades
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Summary
John Spar delivered a broad Emergency Management Agency update covering grant-funded hazmat and EV response trainings, replacement of aging communication generators, adoption of a HyperReach emergency notification system, continued work on a five-year all-hazards mitigation plan and preparations for next‑generation 911 mapping and addressing.
John Spar, introduced by the chair as the county’s Emergency Management Agency representative, gave a comprehensive update on emergency preparedness work and planned training for 2026. He said several public trainings will be offered — Skywarn spotter refreshers (April 13 at Tiffin University), hazmat awareness (March 11), hazmat operations and technician courses, and a lithium‑ion battery/electric vehicle response class (March 21) that will include an EV demonstration and an EV response kit for county use.
Spar described a multi-level training pathway: awareness → operations → technician → hazmat safety officer, and said most classes are grant‑funded so they will cost local fire departments little or nothing. He identified funding sources discussed as the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) grants, EPA HMEP grants and the core Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG). For fiscal year 2023 he said the county collected $69,457 under EMPG; BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) covered $17,000 of a recent five‑year mitigation plan and Seneca County carried an $8,500 share that the director said was offset by documented staff time.
Spar summarized recent infrastructure work: aging communication‑tower generators (21 years old) were replaced with new Kohler generators purchased from Buckeye Power Sales and installed by Klaus Electric; Bishop’s Plumbing and Heating handled gas plumbing work. He said the new exterior generators are larger (around 25 kilowatt capacity) and are on a county maintenance and load‑test schedule.
On communications and public alerting, Spar said the county recently moved from a WENZ subscription to HyperReach, which permits geo‑targeted emergency messaging (including delivery via smart assistants) without requiring each household to individually register. He said HyperReach will be offered to townships and villages on a per‑capita cost basis and can deliver immediate messages drawn to a mapped box around an affected area.
Looking ahead, Spar described county work to prepare addressing and mapping for the state’s next‑generation 911 (ESInet) and a potential replacement of the county’s call‑handling software (Emergency CallWorks is at end of life; Motorola’s Vesta and other vendors will be evaluated). He also reviewed recent incident responses (railcar ethanol spill remediation, diesel and hydraulic fluid spills, and other reported releases) and flagged a lingering question about potential long‑term effects from ethanol on rail infrastructure connectors.
Spar closed by listing ongoing inventory, computer upgrades to Windows 11, and plans for tabletop and full‑scale exercises, and invited questions from the commissioners.