Officials ready for emergency after training

How would local health officials respond to a statewide outbreak of meat contamination?

A training exercise covering that hypothetic scenario indicated Floyd Valley Hospital along with Plymouth County community health and emergency management would do well.

"I think there are a few things we want to tweak in our plans, but I don't think there are any major revisions that we have to make," said Deb Steffen, Floyd Valley community health nurse manager.

Last week's training exercise didn't involve just Plymouth County but was part of something larger -- Vigilant Guard 2009 -- a seven-day, multi-state, multi-site drill.

The simulation included a series of training exercises to test emergency response plans and create better operational relationships within the Federal Emergency Management Agency Region VII, which includes Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.

The Midwest regional emergency response exercise started June 18 and was hosted by the Iowa National Guard.

The Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) brought Plymouth County officials in to participate for one day, June 23, Steffen said.

She said the exercise started with specific details, for example, officials were told 13 people were hospitalized and there were three suspected cases related to the contaminated meat scenario.

"They kept giving us additions to our scenarios and we had to say how we would respond to that extra information," Steffen said.

Twenty-seven people were involved in Vigilant Guard 2009 from FVH, community health and emergency management, Steffen said.

"We did it all on paper so we had logs how we would respond to it," Steffen said. "We were in a conference room in the hospital working in little groups."

Within the scenarios each entity, FVH, community health and emergency management, had their own objectives to meet, Steffen said.

On June 30, county officials will meet with other participants at a statewide meeting to compare notes based on what they took away from the exercise, Steffen said.

The training exercise was beneficial to test communications among the hospital, public health and emergency management departments, Steffen said.

"Every time we exercise it refreshes our memory on how we are going to respond," Steffen said. "I think our plans are good, but you want to make them more efficient if you can."