On Friday, October 14, 2016, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department will conduct an emergency preparedness training exercise that will affect the following health centers:
- 3rd Street main campus – Minimal service/call 209-8000 to inquire
- Ooltewah Health Center – Closed
- Sequoyah Health Center – Closed
- Birchwood Health Center – Sick/urgent care only
- Homeless Healthcare Center – All services open
“Hamilton County faces a number of manmade and natural threats ranging from terrorist attacks to pandemic diseases,” says Becky Barnes, Health Department Administrator, “Training exercises like this insure that all our staff are able to respond to community wide public health emergencies.”
The exercise will be held at Hixson High School during the school’s Fall Break. Residents may see increased activity that day in the area around the school, such as police, fire, EMS vehicles, and lines of people. This is only a drill.
This exercise will test the Health Department’s capacity to set up a POD, or Point of Dispensing. PODs are used to distribute lifesaving medications or vaccines during large-scale public health emergencies. In a real situation, citizens would be notified of when and where PODs will open. The situation will dictate whether a household representative should come to the POD or whether each individual would need to come. Once at the POD, citizens would pass through intake, be assessed by medical professionals, receive their medication and education on the situation, and then exit the facility. They would be instructed to follow up with their regular health professionals.
PODs are part of the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) program. The medicine or vaccines delivered by the SNS would be free for everyone. The SNS has stockpiled enough medicine to protect people in several large cities at the same time. Initial SNS resources would be quickly moved to the crisis area within 12 hours of the declaration of such a need. Everyone is encouraged to learn about how the distribution system works from the CDC’s SNS website.
The better prepared citizens are, the more resilient a community.
For more information on how to prepare your family or organization, visit these websites:
- Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department Emergency Preparedness
- Hamilton County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security
- Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (download the Mobile Preparedness App)
- FEMA
- Ready.gov
If residents have any questions about the upcoming POD exercise or about preparedness, they may call the Health Department’s Emergency Preparedness main number at (423) 209-8074.
