A record snow event crushed much of Pennsylvania and left the volunteers responding to call after call for help. As Governor Rendell declared a State of Emergency for Allegheny County the Elizabeth Township Emergency Management enacted the Emergency Operations Plan and began allocating resources to Public Safety. An initial EOC was established at the EMS station but later had to be moved to the Elizabeth Forward High School due to a large power outage. With the high number of emergency and service incidents within Elizabeth Township and surrounding areas local emergency management agencies from Elizabeth Township, Elizabeth Borough, Lincoln Borough and Forward Township met and decided to work together in a unified EMA to mitigate problems within each community and allocate whatever resources each needed.

The storm was very trying for public safety as it was impossible to field every request made because of the sheer number of life threatening emergencies, however we were able to assist hundreds of residents with temporary relocation and continuous welfare checks due to the large scale power outages in addition to responding to numerous wires down, vehicle accidents and other Fire-Rescue incidents. A temporary warming shelter was established at the Elizabeth Forward High School Cafeteria and operated by the Red Cross, the Pennsylvania Air National Guard was also deployed and assisted Fire, EMS and Police crews access areas which normal vehicles could not.

Many lessons were learned throughout the storm, we would like to thank Public Safety and Political members from Elizabeth Borough, Lincoln Borough and Forward Township for their hard work and dedication throughout the State of Emergency. We would also like to sincerely thank Dr. Bart Rocco and the entire Elizabeth Forward School District for their dedication to Public Safety and the residents of the area, without your support our operations would not have happened.