Cibola to prepare for emergency

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Area agencies, such as law enforcement, fire departments and emergency management departments are planning a two-step training exercise to hone skills needed when responding to major disasters in Cibola County.

The Local Emergency Planning Committee is spearheading the exercises which begin Aug. 20 with a tabletop meeting at Cibola General Hospital.

A mock live disaster follows on Oct. 11, at Kearns Park in Milan, said Peggy Jordan, LEPC chair.

At the hospital, agencies will determine what each wants to be evaluated on, such as surveying the scene and calling the appropriate supporting agencies, Jordan said.
Sue Loudner, emergency management coordinator for the Pueblo of Laguna, said these live training exercises are needed for agencies to be able to determine whether their responses are appropriate or not.

“We learn for real life — we learn together, we work together. This event gives us an opportunity to know each other and determine what each agency will do in such a disaster,” she said.

“One main problem is communication. Several years ago the agencies could not talk with each other on the same radio frequency. That situation has improved, but not been completely resolved,” she said.

Because agencies cannot talk to each other, HAM radio operators will be involved in the exercise, enabling incident commanders to be able to tell responding agencies what they want done.

“It enables us to determine how effective our interoperability is,” Loudner said. “None of the agencies in the county has enough people, resources, or equipment to be able to respond to a major disaster by itself.

“The time to not know what each other is doing is responding to a real event,” she said.

Communication problems mean local agencies have to have multiple layers of backups, she said.

In addition to radios, there are cell phones and HAM radio operators.

One HAM operator will be stationed in the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Santa Fe, so the state will know what is happening during the drill.

“The state’s EOC is manned 24 hours a day with a duty officer,” Loudner said.

Jurisdiction members, department heads, operations chiefs, police chiefs, fire chiefs and emergency management officials will attend the tabletop exercise and what kind of disaster will be determined at the meeting.

It has been determined that it will be a “weapons of mass destruction” event, but what type of WMD has not yet been set, Loudner said.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 285-4560 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.