SE/A Emergency Preparedness Committee’s first meeting
The NN/LM SE/A region’s Emergency Preparedness Committee met at the Vinoy Renaissance Resort in St. Petersburg, FL, on Wednesday, May 28, 2008. (The committee was added as a standing committee by the SE/A RAC in January.) State representatives attended from Puerto Rico, Florida (3), Alabama , Mississippi, Tennessee (2), Virginia and Maryland. Janice Kelly and Beth Wescott represented NN/LM. Janice began the meeting by providing a short history of the development of the committee and also of the national NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Plan, noting that six of the members of the new standing committee were also present at the initial meeting as a task force in Ocean Springs, MS, in February of 2007.
Dan presented an overview of the progress of the national plan, featuring risks specific to the SE/A region (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, as well as oil refineries, nuclear power plants, and other human-caused risks). Dan summarized the goals for network members by highlighting four features: risk assessment, human safety, preservation of unique resources, service continuity. Following the presentation, each member reported on their role in emergency preparedness at their institutions, and on the status of emergency preparedness in their states.
The remainder of the morning meeting was a “walk through” of a table top exercise, in which Dan outlined the various roles played within the plan in response to a scenario occurring in a hospital library. There was discussion about the roles within the four scenarios for response as identified within the existing plan. The roles for the state coordinators were identified as: (1) promote the plan, especially 1-800-DEV-ROKS (ROKS without a C), (2) promote opportunities for training (SOLINET, etc.), (3) promote the toolkit, (4) provide follow-up and reporting during and after an incident.
Dan also showed slides that Cindy Olney had provided of the results of the baseline assessment questionnaire that had been sent out earlier in the spring. The results show that there is much room to assist members in emergency preparedness. During lunch, the group discussed regional issues such as MOU development, opportunities for training, and ideas for promoting the plan. The meeting concluded after lunch with a discussion of goals to be accomplished by May 2009.
I’m in the process now of creating a new wiki for SE/A’s Emergency Preparedness Committee, and will add the full report, the membership list, and more pictures this week. We enjoyed meeting with all the state representatives, both the familiar faces from last year and the new members, as well as working with Janice and Beth again. The Vinoy Renaissance Resort was beautiful and very accomodating, a wonderful place to begin work on emergency preparedness for our region.
