Mountain View County officials recently performed a mock evacuation exercise to better prepare for emergencies.
The simulated disaster was a gas leak, and they evacuated eight people from different areas in the county on April 24, according to Ron Baker, incident commander for the exercise, as well as director of operational services with the county.
“We simulated that we declared a state of local emergency,” said Baker.
“We got hold of the proper elected officials to sign a state of local emergency that gives us the authority to go in and evacuate people.”
Most of the people they evacuated were county councillors or someone associated with emergency services. They were also told beforehand.
“So we said that there was a gas leak all over the county and we went and evacuated I think it was eight people altogether in various areas in the county,” he said.
“We set up the EOC (Emergency Operations Centre) and we started off that this condition was called in to us and our primary objective was to evacuate people using our field staff, getting instructions out to the field staff as to their location and then exercising the procedures that we have to go and get them,” he explained.
They set up an evacuation centre at the county office for the evacuees.
“We went there just like we would in say flood conditions or a gas leak where we would have to go into residences and notify people that we have a dangerous situation,” he explained.
“But we had them simulate a couple of different things, like one of them wouldn't leave and another one was in his shop so he wasn't at home.”
After the exercise, officials participated in a debriefing and discussed each part of the procedure.
“The whole thing is about improving your procedures, making sure they work,” he said.
“One of the things we worked on after is the notification that you've been to someone's residence – like what is the best way to leave notification. We are going to be tying ribbon on their rural address sign.”
They also discussed what information they should provide to evacuees.
County officials conduct these exercises occasionally. The county is a member of the Mountain View Regional Emergency Management Agency and the group meets monthly, which is where the exercises are discussed.
“You're continually training. It's just to make sure that you're ready for anything that comes up. It's all part of being a municipality that you're ready for emergencies and that you're training all the time,” he said.
“I would consider it very successful. It just showed areas that we can improve on and we learned lots.”
