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Local EMA to be tested
Sep 3, 2009
By David Owens, newseditor@laurelleadercall.com
August 18, 2009 10:56 am
— Jones County residents shouldn’t be alarmed this week if they see members of the Mississippi National Guard in town averting a disaster. The Jones County Emergency Management Agency is directing a major emergency preparedness exercise this week involving all elements of emergency response in Laurel, Ellisville, Ovett, Soso, Sandersville and Jones County.
Don McKinnon, director of the Jones Co. EMA, is coordinating the event on a local level, which includes extensive participation by the Mississippi National Guard’s 47th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team (47th WMD-CST) based out of Flowood.
“This event will be a wide-ranging test of our emergency response abilities involving a series of emergency scenarios across all facets of our response capabilities,” McKinnon said. “We have had several planning meetings with Sgt. 1st Class Chris Watts with the 47th WMD-CST and he and his team have a great plan in place.
McKinnon continued, “The local emergency events will begin at 11 a.m. Thursday and conclude that evening at 11 p.m. They will test our abilities to handle a complex and evolving emergency situation. As the day wears on, multiple other emergency situations will be dispatched to emergency service units including law enforcement, career and volunteer fire units, ambulance service units, South Central Regional Medical Center and other non-profit agencies that assist in disasters including the American Red Cross and Salvation Army. We will also fully activate the Jones County Emergency Operations Center and staff it accordingly to manage the multiple incidents that will be ongoing.”
Lance Chancellor, volunteer public relations director for the Jones Co. EMA, said Thursday will be a true test for the agency’s skills.
“Planning for this has literally been underway for months,” he said. “It’s going to be a real good challenge for all of our emergency responders. Because they don’t know what the scenarios are, it’s going to take their training, skills and intuition. That’s not to say that some areas won’t have multiple emergencies. They might be out on one type of call, and might have a school bus wreck somewhere else. They’ll have to figure out how to deploy their limited resources.”
McKinnon said local residents are advised not to be concerned if they see a large contingent of emergency response agencies and units including military units out at any given location this week, particularly on Thursday.
Local elected officials will be briefed about Thursday’s events at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Jones County EOC. McKinnon noted that since the test runs the entire spectrum of local emergency response agencies, the exact nature of the incidents will be kept secret to provide a realistic test.
“While these series of scenarios are designed to test the emergency response capabilities of our system, in the event of an actual emergency, the emergency response units in that particular area will be released to provide service to the affected person or persons,” he said. “The goals of this event include testing and evaluating dispatch and communication channels, emergency response procedures, incident command structures and decisions and actual responses to emergency incidents.
“Our great desire is to better prepare ourselves to serve the public in the event of an actual emergency or series of emergencies and to that end we have dedicated the efforts of literally hundreds of emergency responders in Jones County to participate in this exercise,” McKinnon said.
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