RAGBRAI Disaster team ready if needed

INDEPENDENCE - A 28-member disaster response team will provide behind-the-scenes support in the event of a disaster when a RAGBRAI throng estimated at 15,000 rolls into town on Friday.

Independence is the first 'community in RAGBRAI history to line up this type of emergency response in addition to the local emergency management agency's,” said Mike McGill, one of several committee leaders coordinating the city's hosting of the last overnight stop on this year's cross-state bicycle ride.

'If everything goes as planned, no one will ever know we're there,” said Eddy Weiss, founder and chief executive officer of C4L & Associates, whose tactical response team will bring expertise and equipment for managing a spectrum of disasters.

Weiss said the team's competencies include debris removal, infectious disease control, medical emergencies, sheltering, water rescue, canine search and rescue, firefighting, meteorology and information technology.

'Not that Independence lacks these capabilities, but we give them an additional 30 trained responders that they can bark orders to,” said Weiss, whose company has its headquarters in Eldora.

For a 24-hour period, Independence and RAGBRAI will become a single entity with a population four or five times larger than the city's, according to Weiss.

'That's the overload we are preparing for,” he said.

Weiss said the organization picks one event per year at which to volunteer its services. The scope of RAGBRAI and his close relationship with Rick Wulfekuhle, Buchanan County's emergency management director, were factors in this year's selection, he said.

Wulfekuhle said he regards the C4L response team as an insurance policy.

'We hope they don't get activated. We hope they get bored. But it's reassuring to know we have the extra resources if needed,” he said.

Wulfekuhle said the city could have used them in 2007, the last time Independence hosted a RAGBRAI overnight stop, when a severe thunderstorm drove thousands of riders from the campgrounds, and one of the riders drowned in the Wapsipinicon River.

Weiss, a disaster preparedness consultant, said weather poses the biggest threat to a large, mostly outdoors gathering.

'This is tents and bicycles. People are more exposed and vulnerable than they normally would be,” he said.

While the odds are long that a tornado, wind storm or flash flood will strike a specific locale at a specific time, 'we all know it happens,” he said.

The increasing frequency of mass shootings and terrorist acts poses another form of threat, Weiss said.

In the event of such an attack, the response team, whose members are not armed, would cooperate with local law enforcement officials, concentrating on first aid and evacuation, he said.

Local emergency medical technicians also will provide the first level of care for RAGBRAI riders, with C4L team members responding only if local personnel should become overwhelmed, he said.