The Maryland Highway Safety Office (MHSO) organized a safety seminar on Thursday, April 30, for members of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Region 3, which includes Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. BMC staff presented the LOOK ALIVE regional pedestrian and bike safety campaign and law enforcement training in support of the education campaign. Over 120 participants from across the region attended the online seminar.

Jeff Dunckel with the MHSO provided an overview of statewide pedestrian fatalities, which have been on an increasing trend since 2015, rising from 99 to 133 in 2018. During the same period, the Baltimore region went from 48 to 68 pedestrian fatalities. Between 2014 and 2018, three jurisdictions in the Baltimore region (Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County) were among the top five for number of pedestrian involved injury/fatal crashes in Maryland. The same three are also among the top five for pedestrian involved fatalities by jurisdiction.

Bala Akundi, Principal Transportation Engineer at BMC, and Kenna Swift Williams of Sherry Matthews Group, provided an overview of the development of the LOOK ALIVE campaign starting in early 2019 through its launch in June and over the fall/winter. The campaign began as two video-spots featuring signal woman – a personification of the walk signal – and conveyed messages to drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. The 2020 campaign included media pitches for law enforcement activations in November that garnered significant media coverage including a WBAL feature with BMC Executive Director Mike Kelly.

The COVID-19 pandemic postponed elements of the campaign, such as the spring enforcement wave. One of the last Look Alive events was on March 7 at the B’More Healthy Expo at the Baltimore Convention Center. This joint event with Baltimore City DOT and MDOT SHA featured a Virtual Reality (VR) challenge.

BMC, in partnership with Baltimore County Police Department and MHSO, organized four law enforcement-training workshops between May 2019 and February 2020 and trained over 100 officers from across the region/state on how to conduct pedestrian enforcement activations. Following each of these sessions were multiple waves of enforcement that resulted in positive media coverage, citations and warnings.

BMC is looking forward to working with MHSO and local partners in continuing the LOOK ALIVE campaign during the rest of the year and into 2021.

BMC staff works with stakeholders from member jurisdictions to support regional emergency preparedness programs coordinated through the Baltimore Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) and by the Baltimore Urban Area Homeland Security Work Group (UAWG).

In response to COVID-19, our emergency Preparedness team sprang into action to support local jurisdictions during the crisis. 

COVID-19 has caused significant disruption to the food supply chain in our region, leaving many individuals in danger of going hungry. In response to this challenge, many local governments and non-profits in the region coordinated boxed lunch distribution sites to serve those in need. Persons deemed “food insecure” could include children and families, older adults and other residents who need access to free meals during the coronavirus outbreak. Our staff provided critical food distribution supply chain support to our region’s emergency management agencies in support of this effort.

Our planners provided resources to streamline assessment of food distribution locations and analyzed data to support identification and selection of sites. BMC also worked with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) to share food distribution efforts and strategies that were useful in the Baltimore UASI region. We also collaborated with each jurisdiction’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) within the Baltimore UASI region to work with their designated Food and Water Disaster Supply Chain point of contact to collect plans, templates, checklists, and knowledge sharing resources. We then disseminated these tools to local jurisdictions to aide in their food site selection processes.

Once the food sites were operational, BMC staff researched and shared Federal documents to help guide safe food distribution operations, and troubleshoot some of the issues that arose as food distributions efforts were implemented, such as funding, procurement, site assessment and local/ state coordination.

Beyond food distribution support, BMC provided data collection and reporting, along with resources and best practices in this unprecedented time. BMC staff:

• Collected data to create a GIS representation of the area covered by the food distribution efforts. This bird’s eye view offers an easy to read visual representation of coverage, helping local officials to assure they are reaching all areas in need.
• Supported local jurisdictions’ Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and emergency management activities through EOC brief outs, drive through testing site visits, and pop up testing site execution.
• Developed a Virtual Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Guidance document that reviews suggestions and considerations for implementing a virtual EOC.
• Shared best practices, lessons learned, and regional procurement opportunities between the UASI jurisdictions.
• Researched temporary medical staffing companies and procurement opportunities to support hospital surges.
• Facilitated UASI Emergency Management Directors calls to review current guidance, actions, and strategies for regional missions such as recovery planning in coordination with the Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA).

The BMC emergency preparedness team will continue to support the Baltimore region through the COVID-19 outbreak, doing its part to move the region toward recovery.