By DONNA FARLEY
Staff Writer
Many volunteers feel current Butler County Emergency Management Agency Director Rick Sliger did not respect the time they put into training to serve their communities, or the money they spent from their own pockets to purchase their equipment.
They feel rules such as when volunteers were instructed not to use radios, only cellphone or landlines, were condescending.
"There were outstanding young people in the EOC (Emergency Operations Center) that spent a lot of their time and effort and own money to help the community," said disabled Navy veteran Rick Tarpley, who was unable to help in the field, but volunteered to storm spot from his home and advise the chainsaw team on maintenance. "It basically seemed like he told them to go away."
Tarpley joined EMA after the Pine Cone Estates tornado in 2002 and left three months after Sliger took over.
Sliger gave a positive report on volunteer activities to the Citizens Corps Council in May 2007, according to minutes from the meeting. Citizens Corps was a grant-funded program from SEMA created to bring community organizations and agencies together to increase individual and citizen preparedness.
Sliger said volunteers had: recently provided training for the Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) to 70 people at Sears Youth Center; had trainers available to give CPR and first aid classes; had 30 "well trained" members for search and rescue; and "well trained" members throughout the county to storm spot.
Sliger has since told other media organizations volunteers were "reckless" and a "liability."
Former volunteers say they had a procedure to deal with disciplinary matters. This included a disciplinary form, which would have been signed both by Sliger and the volunteer captain. Charles Pinkerton was in this position as early as February 2007, according to EMA grant applications. A longtime EMA volunteer who was chosen by the members to serve as captain, Pinkerton says he was never asked to sign off on a disciplinary form, and could not recall the disciplinary procedure ever being used.
Several volunteers said previous director Richard Couch often attended the monthly volunteer organization meetings, as well as training scheduled for volunteers. They said this was not the case when Sliger took over.
"I think Couch looked at the volunteers as a resource to help him get his job done. It bettered the community," said former volunteer Annie Hornbeck. "His (Sliger's) lack of willingness to support the volunteers, he made everyone feel like they weren't wanted."
Couch arranged for the fee collected when 911 addresses are issued to fund training for volunteers. Sliger stopped that, according to former volunteer and retired Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper Barry Matthews. Volunteers were also told by Sliger they were not allowed to fundraise to support their activities, Matthews said.
"I got the impression he was trying to run everybody off," he explained, adding he last attended a volunteer meeting in January 2009, before the ice storm, and shortly after, "everyone else voted with their feet."
Former volunteers include current city firefighter Andy Fox, who left prior to the 2008 flood after about two years with EMA, Butler County Health Department public health specialist Chris Grider, who left prior to the 2009 ice storm after almost nine years, and Poplar Bluff Police Department Officer Mark Hastings, who left in 2007.
All three declined to discuss their reasons for leaving the EMA. Hastings now volunteers with Southeast Missouri Search and Rescue, which was formed in 2009 by former EMA volunteers.
"I understand with volunteers comes the risk of human error and that's what some are using as the reason behind not wanting volunteers," said Grider. "I don't know. ... There was a time we worked hand in hand with that agency."
Of the roster in 2006, nearly half are current or former Butler County Fire Department volunteers. Others included the current Southeast Missouri region director for the Department of Natural Resources, Jackson Bostic.
Couch, who retired from law enforcement before coming to the EMA, describes his roster of volunteers as one of the best groups with which he has worked. Couch admitted some volunteers need more direction than others, but said it is a responsibility of the director to manage that.
Hearthel Miler, the wife of the county's longest serving emergency management director, Lloyd Miler, had been concerned in recent years as she heard nothing of the EMA agency and its work with volunteers. She was upset to learn that was because the volunteer organization no longer had members.
"Lloyd always wanted the public to be involved," said Hearthel Miler, who is 85 and served for many years as a volunteer for her husband. "At one time, he had 60 different volunteers, from all walks of life, and he trained them. CPR, assessment of damages, he had his own scuba unit to do rescues. ... It took him many years to get it where he wanted it."
It was Lloyd Miler's mission to protect Butler County and his legacy reflects that, said Seawright.
The Butler County EMA built by Miler was a vital and respected organization, agree the regional and state agencies from Paducah, Ky., to Poplar Bluff, Mo., with whom he built relationships, including members of the National Weather Service and the State Emergency Management Agency. Fifteen years after his death, those same agencies still talk about Miler's EMA and attribute, only half-jokingly, the dissipation of severe storms at the county boundary to "the Lloyd Miler bubble."
Former volunteer Danny Osher became interested in the EMA because of Miler. Osher, who preferred only to speak about his time with the previous director, had joined EMA by the early 1980s.
He left after the 2009 ice storm.
"The purpose of the volunteers was to help people in town and the community," said Osher, who worked at Rowe Furniture for more than 30 years and now commutes to WW Wood Products in Dudley, Mo.
The cities of Neelyville and Qulin both reported using more than 200 hours of volunteer time from private citizens following the 2009 ice storm to remove debris, according to FEMA documents.
Poplar Bluff officials documented debris removal from parks and trails, which alone required 690 non-reimbursable hours from full-time employees in addition to the 704 hours eligible for FEMA reimbursement performed by temporary workers, according to FEMA records.
Former EMA volunteers provided an inventory of the agency's search and rescue trailer done in December 2006. It showed 16 chainsaws used at that time by the volunteer chainsaw unit, which volunteers say was later disbanded by Sliger. Matthews said he personally used grant money obtained by Couch to purchase four new chainsaws, helmets with built-in hearing protection and other accessories.
A current inventory was requested from Butler County officials. The document provided listed only items valued at over $1,000, and therefore none of the chainsaws. An 2009 inventory on file with the county clerk lists items in an EMA trailer, including a "paper bag of items for chainsaws" but not chainsaws.