LEPC reviews lessons learned in disaster drill

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

Communication. Communication. Communication.

Each year, when the members of the Vernon County Local Emergency Planning Committee meet to evaluate the annual disaster drill, communication is one of the areas that is identified that needs to be improved, and this year was no exception.

Four or five years ago, most of the emergency response agencies in the county had old radios that were incompatible with one another and they literally could not talk to one another. Today, these agencies have different radios with common frequencies, so that is no longer a problem.

However, that did not keep communication from being the primary problem that was identified from the Sept. 13 drill.

"Communication is still a problem, but the level of the problem has decreased over the last five years. There were only a few glitches in the system, rather than a complete communication breakdown," Lt. Pat McCarty, LEPC chairman, said.

"Compared to years past, we are doing a lot better," he said.

"We could not do what we needed to do," Warren Schooley, LEPC drill coordinator, said.

"I hope to change that so we can have training for everyone. The fire/rescue and ambulance were the only ones who got any training out of it," he said.

Schooley said that he wants to get started earlier and try to find a source of money to cover the cost of the overtime for the agencies taking part.

"I think it should be paid for. It only takes a rule change," he said.

"The part of the drill inside the courthouse was really neat. They had to carry victims down from the third floor," Schooley said.

"We had trouble getting information at the start of the drill," Steve Zoglmann, Milo Fire Department, told the committee, during their monthly meeting Wednesday at the Nevada-Vernon County Community Center.

Zoglmann said that there are some areas where responders cannot hear the Vernon County Sheriff's Office dispatcher, and it would be a good idea if the start-up information for the drill were repeated several times so there would be more than one chance to get the information.

"These are just general communications problems that are going to have to be worked out," he said.

Loren Hunt, Compton Junction Fire Chief, said that the LEPC needs to hold surprise drills to really test their readiness.

"We were sitting at Cash 'N Dash waiting for the page," he said, adding that they never received a page, but heard the start-up of the drill on their scanner.

In the past, the LEPC has held drills in which the responding agencies knew the week the drill would be held but did not know the exact day or time it would occur and were unaware of the scenario they would encounter when they arrived on the scene. However, that caused some of the departments problems because they need to schedule enough people help to cover regular operations as well to take part in the drill.

Since the drill is primarily a training exercise, the decision was made to keep the scenario as secret as possible and to let the agencies and the public know when the drill would take place.

Hunt said that the Compton Junction department was only called in to supply manpower, even though they have equipment that would be used on a scene like the one staged in the drill.

He said that his department also identified a couple of areas that they will need to work on themselves like how long it takes to get into their self contained breathing apparatus and the rest of their gear.

"I think a drill like this is a good training device," Hunt said.

Tina Werner said that the Vernon County Ambulance District met all of their objectives. They had told the LEPC that they would like to have around 30 victims so they could practice their triage skills, which are used to prioritize the treatment of victims according to their injuries.

The Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts who played the victims for the drill had a blast, she said.

"Our biggest holdup was getting into the court house," she said.

That delay was caused by the fire department personnel not entering the building because they were waiting for Empire and Missouri Public Service to arrive and cut the gas and electric service to the courthouse.

Neither company was ever called to come to the scene, although the employees were aware of the drill and were expecting to be called.

McCarty said that there is a record in the fire department's radio transcripts of the gas company being called.

"That falls back to communications," he said.

McCarty is in charge of the city's dispatchers.

Schooley, who coordinated the drill this year said that he would like to start earlier next year and get some adults to be the victims who could be schooled about their injuries to make it more beneficial.

Werner told the LEPC that she thought it would be beneficial next year to hold a tabletop drill before the drill in the field to work out details.

"Then when we do the real drill, there should only be small things to work on," she said.