LEPC News June 2016
- By dfox
- •
- 10 Jun, 2016
- •
LEPC Meeting June 16th 2016
The LEPC Meeting is held every month on the third Thursday at 8am in the EOC - Emergency Operations Center located at 605 Bernard Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37921. Meetings are open to the public. Attendees are from Emergency Response Agencies, Volunteer organizations, Private industry and individuals.
LEPC Speaker
The June LEPC speaker will be Dallas Coplin, Regulatory Specialist with KUB. He will be speaking about Natural Gas Safety and new changed to the Underground Utility Damage Prevention Act. KUB is also providing breakfast.
http://KUB.org
http://KUB.org
LEPC Meeting Notes - May 2016
May 19, 2016
Colin Ickes welcomed everyone and made the following announcements.
Thanked Rural Metro for providing breakfast.
They spoke about the East TN Healthcare Coalition and the full scale exercise that was held April 5, 2016. The scenario was an Ecoli contamination of the water system. The Coalition is regulated by Joint Commission and is a requirement in order to receive Medicare funding. They are also required to have an annual exercise. The coalition is made up of Knox and the 16 surrounding counties and Region II EMS. The exercise used ICS communications and tested the ability to sustain operations. This scenario is a a realistic one. The water shortage would reach every area of the hospitals from patient care to food service to heating and cooling, restrooms, coffee makers. Not only would the hospitals be working to care for existing patients, there would likely be a surge of patients. Elderly, children with GI symptoms like fever, nausea, vomiting, etc. One of the lessons learned is to send out a press release to the news media prior to the exercise. somehow it began to circulate on social media that this was a real world event and Charity's phone was blowing up. Another lesson learned is that more ICS/NIMS training is needed. It was also learned that you can't just turn off the water to a facility because the water is needed for the cooling towers in the bulding. So every water source must be red bagged. Instrument sterilization was another factor, so the facilities came up with a process to do that. Even after the water has been deemed safe there would likely be a one week recovery time. It takes 24-36hours to determine the water is safe, then all water sources have to be flushed out. Another realization is that dialysis clinics need 2 gallons of water per minute for 4 hours for each patient.
Colin Ickes welcomed everyone and made the following announcements.
Thanked Rural Metro for providing breakfast.
- ICS 300 Class May 24-25 is full ICS400 class set for June 29-30
- Pipeline meeting coming up - Anyone interested see Colin for the Invitation
- Knox County Schools will be have at exercise at every school over the next 2 years.
- DOE exercise planning meeting for the June exercise
- TNCAT exercise June 22-23
- CERT class finishes Saturday
- Active Shooter Exercise - Sand table. This was the first one of these that we have done and it was very valuable. Several action items were identified.
- FEMA is refreshing NIMS - 3rd Update . They have proposed a draft about a month ago that includes a new component. CMS - Center Management System for EOC organization during disasters.
- John Brinkley announced that it is EMS week and that involves all the responders, hospitals, dispatchers. Hospitals have been providing lunch.
- VOAD will be participating in TNCAT
They spoke about the East TN Healthcare Coalition and the full scale exercise that was held April 5, 2016. The scenario was an Ecoli contamination of the water system. The Coalition is regulated by Joint Commission and is a requirement in order to receive Medicare funding. They are also required to have an annual exercise. The coalition is made up of Knox and the 16 surrounding counties and Region II EMS. The exercise used ICS communications and tested the ability to sustain operations. This scenario is a a realistic one. The water shortage would reach every area of the hospitals from patient care to food service to heating and cooling, restrooms, coffee makers. Not only would the hospitals be working to care for existing patients, there would likely be a surge of patients. Elderly, children with GI symptoms like fever, nausea, vomiting, etc. One of the lessons learned is to send out a press release to the news media prior to the exercise. somehow it began to circulate on social media that this was a real world event and Charity's phone was blowing up. Another lesson learned is that more ICS/NIMS training is needed. It was also learned that you can't just turn off the water to a facility because the water is needed for the cooling towers in the bulding. So every water source must be red bagged. Instrument sterilization was another factor, so the facilities came up with a process to do that. Even after the water has been deemed safe there would likely be a one week recovery time. It takes 24-36hours to determine the water is safe, then all water sources have to be flushed out. Another realization is that dialysis clinics need 2 gallons of water per minute for 4 hours for each patient.
Archive LEPC News
Tony Reavley, Director of Emergency Services and Homeland Security for Hamilton County, Chattanooga will speak to the LEPC on lessons learned following the July 2015 shooting incident in Chattanooga.
