 Committee president Dan Fulscher was unable to attend the meeting,
so vice president Mike Geriets presided over the meeting.Geriets,
who is the deputy chief of police for the city of Lincoln, is newly
appointed to the LEPC position of vice president. He replaces Barb
Kline, who recently stepped down.
The group is composed of representatives of various private and
government agencies who work together during a public emergency or
crisis situations. During its meetings, critical information,
updates and changes that might affect others or the group are
shared.
Last quarter, a representative of the prison talked about the
changeover from male to female populations and how the transport was
taking place at the two prisons located south of town. Another
ongoing topic is preparation for the high-speed rail that will pass
through the length of the county. The reduced number of crossings
potentially affects response times in Lincoln and Logan County.
Every year an exercise is conducted that provides many
opportunities for the participants. In June 2012, the group
conducted a full-scale exercise satisfying state requirements. The
exercise, four years in development, used the Emergency Operations
Center and conducted mock exercises in the field. Not only do
various departments get to exercise their team, but everyone gets to
see and know personnel from other agencies and learn how to work
together when an actual emergency situation would occur.
This year, the size of the exercise was narrowed in focus to
communications. A real-time tabletop exercise was conducted in June.
During tabletop exercises, the group is given a hypothetical
scenario of a possible threat or natural disaster that could
conceivably occur in Lincoln and Logan County. Everyone shares with
the others in the room what steps they would take to get help to
those in need or how to dissipate a volatile situation.
Geriets said he appreciated how it helps everyone to understand
what their job is in a real-life situation.
He commented that the meeting’s open-forum style allowed each
person to speak about what their duty would be and how they would
carry it out in a real emergency.
After an exercise has been completed, the group is expected to
have an after-action assessment meeting, or "Hot Wash," and a report
is filed. It was announced that the Hot Wash would be in July.
The next order of business was a slideshow by Alana Sorrentino of
the Logan County Emergency Management Agency. Sorrentino provided
information on Tier 2 chemicals.
Records are kept on hazardous chemicals that some businesses and
manufacturers stockpile. In the event of a fire or explosion, it is
particularly important to know what chemicals might be on-site, how
much and where they are stored. A layout of the building is also an
important provision.
Administrators of facilities that house Tier 2 chemicals fill out
a form. The report is filed with the state, the local EMA and the
responding fire department.
Sorrentino then gave the group a review of these locations in the
city of Lincoln, showing the sites and speaking about what chemicals
are there. It was noted that when multiple chemicals are stored in
one location, each chemical has to be listed on a Tier 2 report.
Sorrentino said that in the entire county there are nearly 60
locations with Tier 2 chemicals.
In announcements, the group learned that clinic services will no
longer be available at the Logan County Department of Public Health
on Fridays.
The health department also has an intern on staff this summer
collecting mosquitoes for West Nile virus research.
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Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital has purchased 25 new "med sleds."
The staff at the hospital has been doing evacuation training using
the med sleds and evacuation chairs.
It was announced that the draft of the 2013 Emergency Operations
Plan has been submitted to the state and is awaiting approval.
The county Mitigation Plan is being drafted now and should be
ready to review and submit to the Federal Emergency Management
Agency by the next meeting.
Approximately 160 mitigation project plans were included, ranging
from bridge replacements to electrical projects and generators.
Terry Storer of the Logan County EMA said that if the plans are
accepted, it would put the county in a position to apply mitigation
grant funding.
With old and new business taken care of, this meeting adjourned,
but a second meeting took place immediately afterward.
SNS annual meeting
Shana Altman of the Logan County Department of Public Health is
required to hold a Strategic National Stockpile annual meeting.
Altman presented a slideshow explaining the SNS program.
SNS is a national program that provides needed medications during
emergency situations. Medications are free to everyone in need and
can be received by the requesting agency within 12 hours. Those
agencies are then responsible for the distribution of the
medications to the public.
In her presentation Altman defined the purpose of the SNS as:
Establish policies
and procedures, under which the LCDPH and collaborating agencies
will operate to request, receive, organize, and dispense mediations
following a bioterrorist attack, disease outbreak, or other major
public health emergency affecting Logan County.
Altman also outlined the chain of command that results in the
decision to request emergency supplies.
She said that once supplies are requested, there are three
delivery sites in Lincoln: a primary, secondary and tertiary. The
three options are provided so that if the primary location is not
accessible for delivery vehicles, they would then move to the
secondary or the tertiary as needed.
There are also three options for dispensing sites for the
medications once they are received. Again, the primary site is the
first option, and the secondary and tertiary are alternative
locations.
Altman then reviewed the local agencies that are involved in this
emergency plan and what their roles are during the emergency.
Finally, she reviewed the five-year plan for the program. She
gave the group a list of projects she will be working on in the next
year.
A partial list of Altman’s work to do in the coming year is to
identify vulnerable populations, create jurisdictional network to
disseminate information, exercise shift change briefings, review and
discuss fatality management notes, review the private sector
dispensing plan, and increase the Medical Reserve Corps volunteer
databases.
It should be noted that maintaining a high level of
confidentiality is crucial to protecting the emergency medication
stockpiles. Information regarding delivery and dispensing sites is
not for public knowledge ahead of time, due to security risks. If an
emergency were to occur, the public would be advised of where to go
to receive needed treatment.
[By NILA SMITH] |
