The Cupertino Courier

Cover Story

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Safety First: Marsha Hovey, emergency services coordinator for the city of Cupertino, oversees the planning, training and testing for emergency management programs.

Get Ready

Learning how to handle disasters

By Erin Hussey

In Marsha Hovey's dream world, evacuation plans would be discussed prior to the start of business meetings, schools would require emergency preparedness classes and every car, home and office would have at least one earthquake survival kit.

Unfortunately, a world full of CPR-certified, first-aid trained, emergency-prepared citizens is just that--a fantasy.

According to Hovey, among the 52,000 people living in Cupertino over the last 15 years, only 800 have taken the disaster preparedness training, just 300 students have participated in the Kaleidoscope Public Safety Camp and less than 500 are knowledgeable about basic emergency procedures.

"We are nowhere near ready," says Hovey, referring to how residents would be able to take care of themselves in the aftermath of a major disaster.

"It's hard when people are so busy to try and motivate them to do something that is only a possibility. But I'm pretty much committed to letting my mind continue to try and figure this out, even when I'm not working."

Hovey is employed by the Santa Clara County Fire Department as the emergency services coordinator for the city of Cupertino. She oversees the planning, coordination, training and testing for Cupertino's emergency management programs. Hovey works with a variety of people and organizations, ranging from classrooms of kindergartners and neighborhood groups to the San Jose Water Company.

"The job is interesting in that it's my job and it's my hobby," says Hovey. "There is a lot of crossover between my on-time and my off-time because I am always trying to figure out how to get people to pay attention."

Before Hovey was focused on preparing people for the future, she helped guide people in the present, as a 911 dispatcher.

"It helped put me through school," says Hovey. During her undergraduate years at San Jose State University, Hovey not only studied business but also worked in the records section at the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.

"Every time I talked to the dispatchers on the phone, I thought, 'this is so cool. They are talking on the radio and saying 10-4. I want to do that.' So I applied in 1976."

Hovey started working as a dispatcher to help pay the bills. It was something she saw herself doing for no more than five years, but the five years quickly turned into 22 years.

"I kind of fell into it and found that I really liked it," she says. "It was too hard to leave because it was fun. I liked going to work and I liked feeling like every day was important."

It wasn't until the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that Hovey started to think more about being proactive rather than reactive.

"The dispatch center let me come up with some basic plans on how to be self-sufficient there," she remembers. "I was also teaching new dispatchers on how to handle mass casualty events and so between those two things I started turning my focus toward the bigger events, rather than just 911 calls with one person calling for help."

Soon after, Hovey was transferred temporarily to the county office of emergency services, where she was later hired. She became the emergency services coordinator for Cupertino in 2000.

"I loved being a dispatcher because I really like helping people," she says. "I also love putting programs together and I really like teaching. This job incorporates not only helping people but my creative side. It was really the only job that ever made me think, 'Maybe this is more fun than dispatching,' and it is. It's more work, but it's more fun.'"

One of Hovey's favorite parts of her job is teaching middle and high school students in a weeklong public safety camp called Kaleidoscope.

"I have seen kids change their level of confidence from the time they come through the door to the time when they leave," she says. Hovey created the camp in 2000 because she wanted her three daughters to do something more than just sleep during their winter breaks. Kaleidoscope has been running for seven years.

"It gives them the feeling that they are empowered," Hovey says. "They know that they can handle something in an emergency; they know what to do."

During the camp, the students tour a dispatch center, become certified in CPR and first-aid, learn how to prepare for an earthquake or flood, participate in a search and rescue exercise and put out a fire using a fire extinguisher.

"My favorite day is the earthquake preparedness day because that's when I get to really talk about the thing I am passionate about," says Hovey. "Their favorite day is the fire day."

Austin Shinagawa, a fourth-grade student from Faria Elementary School, says he signed up because he wanted to learn how to help people in a disaster.

"The most important thing I learned was CPR," he says. "Even though it only works 5 percent of the time, that 5 percent can save someone's life."

Adnan Hamwi, an eighth-grader at Kennedy Middle School, agrees that he feels more comfortable with a disaster situation. "I feel like I can make a difference," he says. "I feel like I can save someone's life now."

In addition to teaching young students, Hovey also runs emergency preparedness classes for adults including the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Cupertino Amateur Radio Emergency Service (CARES).

Cupertino neighborhood watch coordinator Steffanie Turini, who works with Hovey, also thinks it is important for the community to know what to do in a disaster.

"When a disaster happens, like Katrina, the city is not going to be able to fix everything," she says. "You are going to be on your own and you need to be self-sufficient."

Turini adds that Hovey's hands-on, approachable teaching style is one of her greatest attributes.

"People really like hearing her speak," she says. "She presents her information very well, and people get mesmerized by it. I don't come across very many people in the community who don't know who Marsha is."

When Jim Wollbrinck, security and emergency preparedness specialist for the San Jose Water Company, was looking for an individual to help develop the company's emergency operations plan, he called Hovey.

"She is extremely knowledgeable," says Wollbrinck. "She is one of the best in the Bay Area, if not the state."

But it's not just Hovey's résumé that makes her invaluable.

"She's not just an emergency management expert; she's a good cheerleader," says Wollbrinck. "If there is a project that needs to get going, she rallies the troops and gets them motivated and wanting to participate."

For Hovey, the ultimate project is getting more and more people interested in being prepared for a disaster.

"When people take the classes, I hope it sets them on a path toward talking to other people about disaster preparedness," she says. "Hopefully one day, after I have retired, everyone will talk about emergency preparedness as matter-of-factly as they do what they do everyday."

For more information on emergency preparedness, call 408.777.3335 or visit the www.cupertino.org website.