LEPC seeks ways to make training more effective

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

In the real world disasters do not happen on schedule and the results are unpredictable. In recent years the annual disaster drills the Vernon County Local Emergency Committee have sponsored have been highly scripted events designed to provide training for emergency response workers rather than test their ability to respond to unfolding events and find out where they need additional training.

Wednesday, the LEPC decided to look into having an outside group design and hold a surprise disaster drill here in late September or early October.

Robert Benn, Nevada Fire Department captain, told the members of the LEPC Wednesday that the last several drills have been almost like an assembly line.

"A surprise drill will show where training is needed," Benn said. Benn said that in recent years they have pushed for an outside agency to come in and set up a drill at their time, without any of the local emergency response agencies knowing when it was going to happen or what it was going to be.

Although a surprise drill will show what training is needed, such drills do pose some problems for the agencies involved.

James McKenzie, Vernon County Ambulance District director, said, that a drill of this type needs to run its full course without worrying about how long it takes, since that is how a real disaster happens.

Without time limits, overtime costs become a factor, Farrel Offret, LEPC chairman, said.

"A lot of agencies must budget for overtime for a drill," Offret said. With an open-ended drill you will need to be ready to deal with problems like having roads blocked for several hours, McKenzie said.

"If you go with this you have to understand that there are going to be mega-problems," he said.

Offret said that he would talk to Candy Adams, the Missouri State Emergency Management Office representative for this area, about whether the state can set up a drill for us. If that is not feasible, there are other options -- like having a group from Cedar or Barton County come in and set up a drill. McKenzie said that he had some contacts in Taney County and he would talk to them about staging an exercise.