Hingham Implements Expanded COVID-19 Incident Management Team
April 7, 2020 – The Town of Hingham’s Emergency Management Team has been meeting daily since March 20, 2020 via conference call to coordinate our local COVID-19 response. The team is led by Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Steve Murphy and includes the Town Administrator, Assistant Town Administrator, Police Chief, Deputy Police Chief, Deputy Fire Chief, and Executive Health Officer.
On March 30, 2020, that team began transitioning the Town’s COVID-19 response to a new, more robust Incident Command System (ICS) structure led by a larger Incident Management Team to enhance local efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in Hingham.
ICS is a standardized approach to incident management that Hingham’s public safety departments have been utilizing for years to manage both small and large, and planned and unplanned events or incidents. ICS is used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and it enables a coordinated response among various agencies by establishing common processes and a common organizational structure for incident-level planning and resource management.
Hingham’s current Incident Management Team (IMT) is led by a Unified Command consisting of Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Steve Murphy, Town Administrator Tom Mayo, and Police Chief Glenn Olsson. Other key roles in the IMT include:
• Safety Officer - Dr. Elizabeth Eldredge (Board of Health Chair)
• Public Information Officer - Michelle Monsegur (Assistant Town Administrator)
• Planning Section Chief - Lt. Jim Sheard (Fire)
• Operations Section Chief - Deputy Lou Lachance (Fire)
• Medical Branch Directors - Lt. Chris DiNapoli (Fire) and Susan Sarni (Executive Health Officer)
• Logistics Section Chief - Captain Jeff Becker (Fire)
• Finance/Administration Section Chief - Sue Nickerson (Town Accountant)
The IMT is meant to be modular to enable the staffing plan to expand and contract as needed during different phases of the emergency. The team meets daily and is currently leveraging staff from 10 departments to help support and expand the Town’s COVID-19 response.
Any media inquiries related to Hingham’s COVID-19 response should be sent directly to Public Information Officer Michelle Monsegur at monsegurm@hingham-ma.gov.