Inside city's command center for snow emergencies

Sam Phillips was excited as a schoolgirl with a snow day.

In her case, the glow in her eyes came from the prospect of spending the night in the bowels of the Philadelphia Fire Department's headquarters on Spring Garden Street. If she were lucky, she might even catch a few hours of sleep on her office floor.

"This is the part of the job I really enjoy," said Phillips, director of the city's Office of Emergency Management (OEM). "This is where you get to test your concepts, to test your plans. It is also fun to try and keep this place energetic and lively."

She was speaking of the city's OEM command center, a hub of computer terminals, home-theater-size video display panels, and, at midday Monday, about 20 emergency workers busily monitoring the city's vital signs.

By 6 p.m., with the season's most impressive winter storm thus far bearing down on the city, there would be more than 40 people filling the center's seats, creating a rapid-response network designed to quickly counter whatever mischief a major nor'easter can manage.

When a big storm hits the city, key departments - Fire, Police, Streets, Water, and Licenses and Inspections - are all represented for the duration. So, too, are the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. Peco, the Philadelphia Gas Works, and the Philadelphia School District also all have delegates in the room.

"This is not a command element," Phillips said. "It is a coordination element. It is the folks out on the streets that are really in charge, but we try to coordinate and share information. We try to be problem-solvers so things don't escalate to the point that we have to bring it to those guys over there."

She motioned to Mayor Nutter and his chief of staff, Everett Gillison, who were visiting the center in advance of the storm.

Nutter wandered over as Phillips repeated her mantra: "We are not in charge. We coordinate and bring people together."

The mayor all but rolled his eyes.

"Don't let her fool you. She is in charge," Nutter said. "The moment we walked in this room, she was in charge. Not me."

Which is how the mayor wants it.

Over the last seven years, the Nutter administration first revamped and then fine-tuned its response to major storms and other potentially disruptive events, such as sports parades.

"When we came into office, there were very few protocols in place on how to do this kind of stuff," Nutter said.

It fell to Gillison to make sure the system worked. Gillison laughed when asked how many times he had gone through this drill.

"I can't even guess," he said. "We are used to this kind of coordinated effort by now. Like I like to say, this is not our first rodeo."

Gillison bears the responsibility for storm coverage. That includes marshaling the information Nutter needs to make critical calls when the time comes.

"We have been tracking this storm for a week," Gillison said. "We have been looking at models that ranged from us getting three to six inches, to 24 to 36 inches, and everything in between. We have to prepare the city for something that could be nothing to something that could really shut it down."

Said Nutter: "You only get one chance to make the right call. If you are five hours into a storm and suddenly have an 'Oh, no' moment and have to mobilize, it is too late."

If Nutter and Gillison are hovering at 10,000 feet, making the critical calls, Phillips and her team are as close to the street as you can get without putting on parkas.

They monitor weather channels, television news broadcasts, traffic cameras, reports from plow crews and police patrols, Twitter feeds, and online chatter.

"We can have a really good idea of what is happening in the city at all times," she said.

That information is then used to direct the appropriate response - be it a snow plow, Water Department crew, or Red Cross team - to a crisis point.

The storm was still hours off when Phillips spoke with the invigorated edge one might expect from a coach on the eve of a big game.

"I stay here until it is over," she said. "The longest I've slept on the floor of my office is three nights. It is just easier to be here. You don't know what is going to happen. And this is the job. So."