Posted: August 12, 2005
Plano continues to work with state and federal agencies to enhance our
municipal response to emergencies. The nation’s largest state-wide
emergency readiness exercise was held in Texas August 8 – 10, with
numerous City of Plano staff attending as participants, observers or facilitators
in various regional exercises.
Besides holding its own full-scale simulated emergency exercises and participating
in regional training, observation of other municipal or county exercises
throughout the state plays a key role in helping Plano identify ways to
improve emergency response.
“
The value to me as an observer is the opportunity to see the process from
the ‘outside looking in,’ which provides a different perspective,” said
Plano’s Environmental Health Manager Steve Berry. “Participants
are caught up in providing necessary services to the victims during a simulated
event, while observers can focus on the process, what goes well and what
can be improved.”
Mr. Berry was part of a four-person team invited to observe a Collin County
and Collin County Community College (CCCC) partnership with the Texas Department
of State Health Services, August 9, at the CCCC Preston Ridge Campus in
Frisco, part of the statewide exercise.
The exercise, involving multiple county and state agencies, was designed
to test and evaluate aspects of state, regional and local plans related
to receiving, distributing and dispensing medicine from the Strategic National
Stockpile. Hundreds of persons volunteered as “victims” of a
simulated outbreak of a deadly infectious disease, requiring mass dispensation
of mock medication, aiding in the training of the health professionals
involved in the dispensation.
“
In my role as a Public Information Coordinator, I am on the media and information
side of an emergency,” said Deborah Stone, Plano Public Information
Coordinator and observer at the exercise. “Besides observing the information
flow, I decided to also participate in the event as a victim and go through
the entire check-in and medicine distribution process. Being able to understand
what thousands of persons would individually experience if they were told
to report to a central location for a medical evaluation and treatment
helped me understand what those conditions would be like and what information
might be distributed to calm fears and help persons better understand the
process.”
For Mr. Berry, his observations as a health professional brought to mind
a list of ideas to be explored, such as issues that were not addressed,
other services that could be provided, what to do when persons show up
with pets, how to accommodate persons with special needs, how to process
and keep track of hundreds of distressed and often displaced persons and
how to effectively handle the logistics of storing, receiving and dispensing
medications.
“
Things I never would have thought or known about when you have a medical
situation involving hundreds of people I now can identify,” said Ms.
Stone. “Standing in line with the other mock-plague participants I
heard persons asking if there was a cost, the need for health insurance
cards, if shots were involved, what medication was being dispensed, how
their children were affected, would they have to be placed in isolation.
Things like this I couldn’t learn without the opportunity to observe
and participate.”
Said Plano Environmental Health Director Brian Collins, “There is great
value in observation of this type of exercise as it prepares you for what
is expected and prepares insights as to the unexpected. We saw a lot of
areas that in an actual event could be improved, and that is what these
exercises are all about – preparation and improvement.”
The statewide operation was staffed, in part, by City of Plano staff, who
worked with the Texas Engineering Extension Service to facilitate portions
of the event across the region.
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