Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the tidal wave occurs well away from your location, where you would not normally
be providing assistance in an emergency response.
Nonnatural Disaster Response (Nonterrorist)
How will the Public Health response be coordinated for disasters not caused by
nature, but that can and do happen on a regular basis? Examples of this would
include chemical plant explosions, train derailments (is a hazardous materials
incident involved?), plane crashes, or other similar incidents that could involved
mass casualties. These will be incidents that will involve large-scale work from first
responders, but significant follow-up work by Public Health officials to deal with
what could be a large number of dead or injured, and the aftereffects of a hazard-
ous materials release in the event of the chemical plant explosion or transportation
incidents.
Terrorist Attack
The difficulty for the PHO, and for everyone in Emergency Management, is that
the exact form of the terrorist attack will not be known, of course, until after it
has already occurred. Hurricanes can be forecast with a great degree of accuracy.
Although earthquakes remain difficult to predict, they have been well studied in
terms of what kind of destruction they cause and what response is needed in order
to help the most number of people in a timely, effective fashion. Even the minutes
given by releasing a tornado warning just before one strikes can be beneficial in
coordinating the necessary Emergency Response effort.
There is no such advantage with terrorist attacks; however, by planning for all
the other major types of events listed here, and by working with local, state, and
federal authorities to coordinate the Incident Command planning and the Public
Health agency's role in such a response, the emergency response to a terrorist attack
will be more efficient, effective, and will, in the end, save more lives.
This type of effort requires more than simple planning. It is always wise for
the PHO to work in their agency to coordinate drills and exercises that will allow
everyone who could be involved in a response the opportunity to practice for the
real thing—keeping in mind that inevitably, the real thing will occur in some form.
Training your agency for any kind of incident should definitely include training on
how to utilize Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). In an emergency response,
staff in your agency are either going to have know how to function using this equip-
ment, or they are going to have to quickly be able to teach someone else how to do
so. It may also fall on the Public Health agency to train staff from other agencies
and even volunteer organizations in how to use PPE, and such training should be
offered as broadly as possible.
Another thing to think about is that first responders and everyone else who will
be offering some sort of assistance after an incident have probably developed their
