Beaufort County’s decision to revive its Local Emergency Planning Committee after a five-year absence should not go unnoticed.

The committee and the plan it will produce – and update – will prove invaluable to the county and its residents. The committee’s mission is to better prepare the public and private sectors in the county to respond to emergencies such as natural disasters, environmental emergencies and other threats to the public’s safety and health. To carry out its mission, the committee must prepare an emergency-response plan that addresses multiple scenarios, update that plan at least annually and provide information about chemicals in the county to county residents.

Let’s hope that plan never has to be implemented. But if and when an emergency occurs that requires implementation of the plan, it will be ready to use. More importantly, those responsible for implementing the plan will know how to respond to the emergency. That means lives and property will be saved.

An important part of the planning process is determining what some potential hazards are and where they are located.

Part of the committee’s planning process includes requiring segments of the community that deal with specified amounts of hazardous materials to provide an annual inventory of those materials those pose hazards – chemical, biological, radioactive and so on. Those annual submissions are known as Tier II inventory reporting.

That reporting, make that accurate and complete reporting, goes a long way in helping the committee make Beaufort County a safer place to live. Information provided by such reporting lets the committee know exactly what it’s dealing with, in both planning for disasters and dealing with disasters.

John Pack, Beaufort County’s emergency-services coordinator, at the committee’s reorganization meeting last week, said having updated Tier II reports readily available and quickly accessible is critical to emergency-response personnel and others in helping them know how to deal with specific incidents.

“LEPC can’t function unless we know about these documents,” Pack said. “The Tier IIs are critical to the local fire departments and EMS so they know what hazards may be in their particular fire and EMS districts. It’s critical to the people at the facility so they can work with the local fire and EMS (departments). The LEPC’s job is to make sure this interface occurs.”

“Getting that information from each other is what it’s really all about,” Brian Barnes, a risk-management program coordinator with the N.C. Emergency Management Division, said during the reorganizational meeting held in Chocowinity last week.

He’s right, but there’s more to it.

We believe a reorganized LEPC will help save lives. That’s what it’s really all about.