Agencies participate in disaster preparedness exercises
From our weekly issue dated April 29, 2009
On Monday, April 27, several government agencies and the four area hospitals in Grants Pass, Medford and Ashland participated in a full-day exercise, “Cascadia Peril,” involving simulated emergency response to a 9.0-magnitude earthquake.
Participating agencies were the Jackson County Board of Commissioners, the city of Jacksonville, the Rogue Valley Council of Governments, Jackson County Animal Control, ODOT, Oregon State Police, Josephine County Emergency Communications, Josephine County Community Emergency Response Team, and Josephine County Public Health Dept.
But notes Belle Shepherd, Josephine County Public Health director, disaster preparations are being examined and improved constantly.
“We have to exercise all this stuff to know how it works,” Shepherd said. “It’s about the safety of people and recovery efforts that we may need to do.”
Public health agencies first became involved in disaster preparations after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States prompted the federal government to provide funds to local governments to combat bioterrorism, Shepherd said.
In Josephine County, most disaster preparation duties are split between Public Health and the Emergency Management agency, under the sheriff’s office. Shepherd estimates that one full-time Emergency Management staffer spends “about 75 percent” of her time formulating readiness plans for transportation, searches, fires and floods.
Public Health handles water, food, air, and vaccinations; and shares mass sheltering duties with the American Red Cross, she said.
Aside from other government entities, emergency management and public health coordinate with many volunteer organizations. For instance, some area churches are involved with storing food and clothing.
An essential part of such preparations is how well emergency communication systems and their backups work in a disaster scenario.
If traditional communications are down, officials can rely on ham radio, and can even send documents through such a system. Shepherd said that Government Emergency Telecommunications systems and satellite phones are also available for use.
During 2007, Josephine County officials conducted a 100-year flood exercise in Merlin. Shepherd said that it was “definitely a successful event.” It enabled the various agencies to determine problems in their emergency response systems.
“We try to plan for little instances,” Shepherd said. “No one wants to fall flat on their face.”
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The April 27 exercise involved between 60 and 65 personnel from Jackson County and around 10 from Josephine County, Shepherd said. Officials practiced using Jackson County’s backup emergency facility, because its primary one is located on the sixth floor of a building that likely would not survive a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, she added.
“We have to create a script, essentially,” Shepherd said. “We had to build the exercise around that.”
Shepherd states that a 9.0 earthquake would affect everyone in the state, and that in such an event, Three Rivers Community Hospital in Grants Pass probably would have to accommodate patients from Northern California and the Southern Oregon coast.
“An earthquake doesn’t know boundaries from county to county,” she said.
Josephine County’s emergency preparation is “probably better than some,” Shepherd said, but can still use improving. Officials have learned from such events as the 2002 Biscuit Fire and the New Year’s Eve flood of 1996, she noted.
“There have always been learning environments, but we’ve always been successful,” Shepherd said.
The focus of emergency exercises is to ensure that citizens who need help can get it. As such, Shepherd said it’s better for individuals and families to be prepared with a 72-hour supply of food, water, medicine and other necessities.
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