It's mid-December and 35 to 45 percent of students at each Plymouth County school are absent due to illness and ten percent of law enforcement, health care and other emergency personnel are absent from work due to illness or caring for ill family members. Three percent of swine in the county have died while 15 percent are ill.

Food and other necessary health care supplies are dwindling due to a lack of healthy drivers to transport crucial supplies to stores and care centers from distribution sites. Plymouth County is experiencing an Influenza pandemic. The virus is a new strain and the vaccine will not be available for another three months. Now what?

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On June 19 and 26, more than 45 Plymouth County residents from various sectors of the community including law enforcement, health care, education and business gathered at Floyd Valley Hospital to discuss how the county would respond in the event of an Influenza Pandemic.

During the sessions, Brent Harmeier, the Region 3 Exercise and Education Coordinator from Sioux City, facilitated the pandemic tabletop. Harmeier talked the various community members through four scenarios, each showing the progression of a pandemic Influenza outbreak.

Based on the scenarios, attendees fielded questions concerning how they would handle security issues, notify the public, care for the sick, gather supplies, dispose of dead animals, and distribute vaccines once available.

The tabletop discussions even addressed how vaccines would be distributed to jail inmates and citizens who were unable to make it to the two mass dispensing sites that would be set up in Plymouth County.

"We're working on a mass dispensing plan," said Deb Steffen of Public Health, "but we'd push (the vaccine) out to nursing homes and jails where you couldn't bring in the population."

Community members also stressed the need for educating the public throughout the pandemic in order to prevent fear.

"We would try to provide education ahead of time in order to squelch panic," said Steffen.

Steffen also emphasized that it would be extremely important to communicate how the public could protect themselves from contracting the virus until they could receive a vaccine which would be distributed first to those the Center for Disease Control listed as having priority.

The tabletop allowed influential members of the community to think through how they would respond to a crisis of this magnitude. Because of the discussions, people were able to identify shortcomings in their crisis planning and then work to remedy them now rather than in the midst of an actual widespread flu outbreak.

"Nothings very clear cut, but that's the point of holding drills and tabletops," said Deb Steffen of Public Health.

During the first discussion, it became apparent that no single person had been identified as a "commander" who would facilitate communication between all the groups and basically take the lead in a crisis of this magnitude. Before the second discussion, Floyd Valley Hospital Administrator, Mike Donlin, volunteered to take on that responsibility if the need arose.

Most community members left the talks appreciating how the drill had made them think through how they would respond and identified areas of their planning that needed more work.

"I thought it was quite interesting and pointed out flaws in the system," said Supervisor John Schneider. "If everybody's sick where are you going to get masks and needles and all the health supplies you'll need. It was very interesting."

Supervisor Jim Henrich also left the meeting with a greater sense of how much a pandemic flu would impact the county.

"They brought up some things you don't think about," commented Henrich. "If a bunch of people or their kids are sick, (the kids) can't go to daycare so then you're going to have to stay home with them. Then you can't go to work either, and the whole thing just kind of snowballs. It could get to be quite a deal."

Lavone Galles, who helped organize the tabletop, acknowledged that the tabletop gave community members a lot to think about. Key members of the group will reconvene in mid-July to have a follow-up meeting where they will provide possible solutions to problems that were identified during these sessions.