| If a pandemic flu hit Fort Bend County, city officials, leaders or decision makers won't stand around with their hands out looking for outside help, because this county has a plan.
Actually all Texas counties do, but each county has to tailor the state plan to the needs of their community, said David Wahome, Fort Bend County public health information specialist.
As a state requirement, each Texas county is given a general preparedness plan, but counties must mold the general plan into one that reflects their specific needs.
“What works for Harris County may not work for our county,” he said. “This is why catering the ‘big plan' to fit our needs is so important.”
And part of tailoring the plan, the county's Health and Human Services Department recruited certain authority figures from various areas of the county, like law enforcement, emergency medical response personnel and school administrators to participate in a four-hour Pandemic Flu Tabletop Exercise the department hosted Thursday at the Safari Texas Ranch.
During this exercise, the 85 participants were divided into groups and given problem scenarios to which they had to figure out how to realistically and effectively respond.
Infection control measures, like social distancing, the effect of closing schools, how to continue vital government operations and how to staff and operate health care facilities were just a portion of the issues participants had to address.
“This is not a plan that is sitting on a shelf collecting dust,” said Wahome. “This is a living, breathing plan.”
Jean Galloway, Health and Human Services director, said one of the most important aspects of this exercise was to let the decision makers understand how this preparedness plan will impact them on a personal level and as a community.
“They got to see how closing a school, for example, directly impacts people,” Galloway said. “How will the children continue their education? Will teachers be paid? Will parents who have young children have to quit their jobs to stay home? These are the questions they faced and not all questions have answers yet.”
David Olinger, Fort Bend Health coordinator, said the exercise was to also create an understanding about the overall purpose of the plan and role they would play in putting the plan into action.
“We want them to share this information to the rest of their employees or teams,” he said. “We hope they will analyze the sufficiency of their own personal plan and if they don't have one, maybe they now understand the importance of one and develop it.”
During the exercise, the participants were also introduced to the idea of “no outside help,” which means if an incident like a pandemic flu hit the county, residents, organizations and trained volunteers would be standing on their own.
What this means, Olinger said, is “if (the pandemic flu) hits us locally, it's hit everywhere” - everyone will have to be self reliant because there will be no outside help available.
“I don't think too many people understand this,” he said. “ We won't be able to call on state or federal assistance - we will have to rely on ourselves.”
This is the purpose of the preparedness programs and its exercises, Wahome said, to prepare the county for possible pandemic dangers and to teach everyone how to respond to the incident instead of panicking.
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