Dec 26, 2003 By April Straughters 7 min read

LUZERNE TWP. – While officials at the State Correctional Institution at Fayette hope they never have to implement an emergency response strategy, they acknowledge that they must have such a plan in place. And, they realize they must have coordinated first-response unit to handle any emergency.

For this reason, five representatives from four local fire departments met recently with prison officials to begin working on emergency response, as the fire police would be needed to help man the streets leading to the prison and the outer perimeters in an emergency.

Lt. Patrick Heaps, the emergency preparedness coordinator at SCI-Fayette, said he wanted to meet with the local fire police because the prison would depend on them for traffic and crowd control in an emergency.

Heaps said that the role of the fire police would be very important because they probably would arrive before the state police at Belle Vernon, who also would respond to an emergency such as a lockdown.

“We want to utilize the fire police because they are the closest, most readily available to initiate the efforts,” Heaps said.

He said prison officials also have considered using Brownsville and Luzerne police in emergencies, but it would be difficult because they don’t want to deplete the borough’s force, and the township’s police department operates part time.

SCI-Fayette Superintendent Neal Mechling said he and Heaps want to “get their strategies together” so that they are prepared for an emergency, but he said he hopes the prison never has to implement those strategies.

The prison is not open to capacity yet and has only 300 inmates on site. According to Heaps, the inmates there now have helped in setting up the prison.

The first group of “level-two” inmates was phased in to the prison in August from SCI-Waynesburg, a minimum-security prison that was recently mothballed. Level-two inmates qualify for work cadre.

When the prison is open to capacity, it could house up to 2,034 inmates.

Heaps explained that prison officials are still developing policy and procedures for inmates and working out any bugs in the system. He said the meeting with the fire police is part of that process.

Heaps spoke with Sgt. Paul Pressy and Capt. Bob Miller of Hiller Volunteer Fire Department, Lt. Kim Saltsman of Allison 2 Volunteer Fire Department, Capt. Don Bare of Tower Hill 2 Volunteer Fire Department and Lt. Bob Sunny of Brownsville North Side Fire Department.

Heaps, who worked as a paid firefighter for a number of years and a paramedic in the Wilkinsburg and Pitcairn areas, explained that his position as emergency preparedness coordinator means that he is in charge of making sure everything involving security and emergency response is up to date.

“If we do have an emergency situation that requires a lockdown, we want to be ready, in case we need outside services,” Heaps said. “You would be support for us. For the most part, we can handle everything on the inside.”

He said the prison has “quite a few agencies to depend on” in emergencies, such as a hostage rescue team and a fire emergency rescue team.

In an emergency, Heaps explained, he and the group would have to develop traffic control points to control the area. He would assign an institution employee at each point to assist the fire police, and his employees would be helpful in identifying personnel and other prison officials who should be allowed to enter the premises.

During their discussion, the fire police brought up a number of concerns, including communication, which they say is difficult in the prison’s remote location.

According to Miller, the fire police radios get bad reception in that area, and the radios are not connected to Fayette County 911’s system unless requested by state police.

Heaps said that if he needs to request that the fire police be hooked up to the 911 system, he will make that move as part of the emergency protocol. Heaps also said that the state is looking at purchasing a new radio system that could solve that problem.

Miller said Luzerne Township has 25 fire police, most of whom perform double duty and also serve as firefighters. He said most of the fire police have been “formally trained,” but he would like to get them more training.

“We’re going to try to get everyone updated with the training. We’ll put the most experienced in where they can do the best job,” he said.

Heaps said his goal is to make the prison as safe as possible and to be prepared for any emergency, and he remains open to questions and concerns from the group.

“Anything we do at the institution, we are not dictators. I want you to come to me if you have question or problems or suggestions. We want you to come to us, and if there’s something that needs to be changed we’ll look at it,” he said.

In response to a question about alerting the community during a prison emergency, Heaps said the prison will install a siren, possibly a steam whistle that would be powered from Fayette Thermal, the adjacent company that provides steam heat and air-conditioning to the prison.

Heaps also said the state is looking at purchasing services from a community alert network system based in New York. The company provides a service that can contact up to 6,000 residents in 10 minutes, with 256 lines making calls at the same time.

He said at SCI-Fayette, the system would be used to contact anyone with a listed number living within a 1- to 2-mile radius of the prison. Residents would hear messages that he said could be recorded at the time of the emergency.

Heaps said that while officials try to prepare for emergency response, they also take every precaution to prevent such situations. He said that SCI-Fayette, the newest facility among the state’s 26 institutions, has a state-of-the-art security system.

The $125 million facility, which could house the 40 most difficult prisoners in the state, is the only prison in the state and the fourth in the nation to include a long-term segregation unit, according to Carol Scire, assistant to the superintendent.

Scire, during an open house tour in July, said that inmates in this unit are on “lockdown constantly” and are “never transported.” She said these are inmates with “extreme behavior problems” or who have “failed in programs that the state has offered.”

Heaps said the prison features three separate detection sensors and a double fence around the facility.

The sensors provide a “redundant system” that detects different types of motion. The system includes a taut wire that will alarm if anything is pulled or stretched along the fence, a shaker alarm that goes off if the fence shakes and a microwave Doppler radar that has beams that detect movement.

Also an armed control officer constantly circles the prison’s outer perimeter in a vehicle.

In the main control room, which Heaps calls the “heart of the facility,” computer monitors display the entire prison. The lockup has 324 cameras, and Heaps said that number probably will be increased to 500. Ninety of those cameras are recording at all times, while the others are used for surveillance.

Also a computer system within the main control room allows for immediate control of the entire facility.

Heaps said that by touching the screen that displays a map-like layout of the institution, he can lock every door within the prison. He said that each unit also has a touch screen to lock doors within the separate units.

While his main concern at the prison is safety, he said he and everyone at the prison are also working to be good neighbors.

“People don’t want prisons in their back yards. That’s just the way of life. But we are doing our part, and we want to be friendly to the community,” he said.