Illinois. Public agencies can help each other
with personnel and resources for both natural
and man-made disasters. There are two basic
types of assistance available: 1) Command
and Control – Local and Remote; and 2)
Equipment – IPWMAN and Outside Resources.
For the Command and Control portion,
IPWMAN can help with asset resources and
coordination, incident command, safety officer
coordination, FEMA/IEMA records adminis-
tration, debris management, and mass e-mail
notifications. IPWMAN's Equipment Service
provides needed heavy equipment as well
as communications radios, barricades, mes-
sage boards, and Wi-Fi cellular hotspots.
3
Since many Illinois communities have tree-re-
lated work assigned to the public works
departments, IPWMAN is a natural for first-re-
sponder assistance on a neighbor-to-neighbor
basis. However, street departments, town-
ships, county highway departments, water
and wastewater agencies and districts, park
districts, and any public agency performing
a public works function are also eligible.
Authority for IPWMAN activities is provided
under Illinois law for mutual aid agreements.
The communities sign one standard agreement
by each member agency, which is self-renew-
ing after the first year with payment of dues.
A community can cancel at any time. There
is a 12-hour minimum response guarantee.
The first five days of support is provided at
no cost. Mutual aid is available for tornados/
wind storms, earthquakes, flooding, infra-
structure failure, and terrorism events.
Since IPWMAN's creation, members have
responded to 28 events totaling over $1.2 million
USD ($1.6 million CAD) in services to neighboring
communities. There are over 342 participants in
the state, with 200 in northeast Illinois and the
remaining 142 scattered throughout the State.
2
Uprooted tree after Ottawa tornado
in February, 2017.
20 CityTREES
