The International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) recognized winners of the IAEM Global 2009 Awards Competition presented Oct. 31 through Nov. 5 at the 57th Annual Conference and EMEX 2009 in Orlando, Fla.

Among the recipients were several Carroll County organizations recognized for their response and recovery assistance during the Carroll County flood of 2008 - Eel River Tribe of Indiana, Purdue University, NIPSCO, NOAA/NWS, REMC and DANI.

Flooding in 2008 and 2009 showed weaknesses in Carroll County’s flood plan and pushed the cash-strapped county to the brink of not being able to help its citizens. Only a broad-based community partnership would improve safety and help the hundreds of flood victims recover. Following disastrous 500 year flooding, rural Carroll County partnered with widely diverse community members to recover from and reduce future flood damage.

Such partnerships were developed between Carroll County Emergecy Management Agency, Purdue University, the Eel River Tribe of Indiana, NIPSCO, REMC, NOAA/NWS, USGS, DANI, and other faith-based organizations.

Purdue University provided 300 students to assist with flood cleanup and a team of Purdue Calumet graduate students led by IAEM member Dean Larson came to aid in the creation of new evacuation plans.

The Eel River Tribe of Indiana partnered with Carroll County to obtain a NOAA/NWS grant for outdoor sirens. NIPSCO and REMC provided funds, labor, and expertise to assist in evacuation plan creation and siren installation. NWS provided free “Historic High Water” signs to further floodplain education in the area.

Involvement of the Eel River Tribe allowed bypassing of red tape at the state level, while furthering the community involvement and education efforts of the tribe. A NOAA/NWS grant was awarded to the “Escape Early and Live; Tippecanoe River Information Before Emergencies” proposal by the Eel Tribe and today provides river residents with early warning that did not exist before this effort.

These sirens also provide previously unavailable allhazard warning to 7,000 citizens, as demonstrated in a tornado warning on August 19 only hours after the siren installation was complete.

Carroll County EMA Director Dave McDowell was one of those hit hard by the flood.

“Having your home and belongings suddenly taken away is a crushing experience. Having to work agonizingly hard to clean-up the ruined remains of your life makes it worse. Charitable efforts of love, labor and cash helped the citizens regain not only their belongings but their faith in a community that cared. Seeing the wide variety of people and organizations who were willing to selflessly provide their time, expertise, labor and prayers to make us whole again has been at once an uplifting and a humbling experience,” Mc- Dowell said. “Bonds of friendship and shared mission have been created that will help carry our community through hard times in the future and hopefully even prevent those times from being as hard.”

A complete copy of winners can be found at iaem.com/pressroom/documents/ IAEMAwardsNews- ReleaseFINAL.pdf.