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Alabama counties partner with local organizations for disaster preparedness | 01.23.2007 | 07:26:29 | Views: 5452 | ID: January 23 '07: Members of the local community, government officials, disaster responders, and private organizations gathered from the Atmore and Escambia counties in Alabama recently to hold a disaster preparedness and response town hall-type meeting, the local Atmore Advance reported. The focus of the meeting was to plan a community-wide disaster drill "to test the response of emergency workers, public and private." David Adams, the director of the Escambia County Emergency Management Agency told the Advance, "This will be a full-scale drill for Escambia County. ... The drill is being designed to test the ability of emergency response teams in our county to respond to a disaster should one occur" To help plan the drill, a group of organizations, both public and private, participated in the standing-room only meeting. Representatives from local fire departments, sheriffs' offices, ambulance services, Native American tribal leaders, the Red Cross and the Humane Society outlined a plan guided by federal mandates from the Department of Homeland Security which has recently required local communities to show how they are using response equipment purchased with federal grant money. Officials planning the drill said they hope they can simulate a disaster as close as they can to the real thing and that the lessons learned will help to improve response and disaster planning scenarios.
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