Pueblog USa
Thursday, June 15, 2006
The Pandemic TabEx (Part 2)
Some concerns.
About yesterday’s table exercise for city and county agencies regarding the possiblity of a ballistic form of bird flu; something akin to what happened in 1918…..
...some of the comments I heard gave me pause.
Let me explain my background.
I’m a retired (reserve-side) lieutenant colonel of infantry. Before I got stupid and got a commission, I was a sergeant in the 82d Airborne Division. In the latter 10 years of my service, I did a LOT of table exercises for the Army. In such exercises, we trained State Area Commands—think of the Colorado National Guard’s Adjutant General and his staff—in how to prepare for and deal with national emergencies [think Iraq] and natural disasters [think bird flu or Katrina]. We covered the western third of the United States with such exercises. It was interesting work dealing with these sorts of situations. We were the most effective team of our sort in the nation. But we only dealt with the western third of the Union. We never were in a position to teach Louisiana anything useful.
At any rate, I learned a lot from dealing with various groups. One of the things I learned was to detect when some group was, as we in the military called it, ‘blowing smoke’. In other words, they had an idea of what they were supposed to do and they talked a good fight. But they were, by and large, unprepared to deal with the reality of the situation.
I got that old feeling again yesterday, every now and again, as I listened to what was being said by some of the ‘briefers’. I had this incredible desire to see their ‘plans’ in so much black and white on hard-copy when they said things like, “We need to…..” or “We should be prepared for….” In days gone by, I’d ask such people to show me their plans. In some cases they had brought them for reference material. In other cases…..there were no such plans in place.
I think, considering the consequences of NOT having effective, coordinated and approved, plans in place, I think it would be a good idea on the part of the City Fathers and County Commissioners to see just what each agency has planned, in so much black and white.
Just to be ‘certain’.
I say that because, as it came out in last Monday’s City Council’s Work Session, it seems that despite the idea that the Dispatch office should be tracking the various parameters of Fire Department performance, e.g., alert notification, deployment of vehicles, arrival of vehicles at the site of the incident, etc…..
...for some STRANGE reason, that data isn’t in the system. And, for what it’s worth to all of us who pay taxes to the city….
...we seem to have tossed $50K down the drain to a consultant who could not deliever what the City Fathers asked for, because that critical data was ‘missing in action’.
Seriously….
....if human lives depend on city and county agencies doing what we are expecting them to do, perhaps in a supposed bird flu pandemic, as Councilman Thurston asked last Monday evening, “What is the price of a human life?”
I’d ask additional questions, “Who’s going to pay for it? And how?”
Next entry: Tularemia Previous entry: The Pandemic TabEx (Part 1)-
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