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Posted at: 11/24/2009 7:05 PM Preparing for Disaster(ABC 6 NEWS) - When a major disaster strikes like the Austin tornado in June or the one in Parkersburg, will your town be prepared? Today, one city can now say yes. About the only thing you can predict about disasters is that they'll be unpredictable. But even though they can happen anywhere at any time, there are ways to prepare. Some of those preparations were underway today in Mason City. On paper, at least, a Tuesday morning in late November brought disaster. "We are having a mock disaster drill, " says Steve O'Neil. “We are testing the capabilities of our emergency operations center for Cerro Gordo County." And the best test comes by practicing "what if." "This is a tornado situation starting about mid Clear Lake, heading to Mason City," says Ray Huftalin. With the people who would be leading the recovery. "A mix of government officials, emergency responders, private sector and volunteers," says O'Neil. As part of the drill scenario, the tornado destroyed a school and a hospital knocking out electricity and blocking roads. "That's one of the biggest things we do here, trying to sort through what is significant and what's not and prioritize," says O'Neil. And while this exercise involved a mock tornado, the emergency response policies could just as easily fit disasters like last week's fatal bus accident near Austin. "We would scale down a little bit for mass casualties such as that one, but the principles, the functions that we provide are exactly the same," says O'Neil. And one of the keys is communication. "In Parkersburg we had of the 99 counties, I think there was 68 emergency coordinators who responded at different times," says Huftalin. “Hopefully they are thinking of ways they can do their job more efficiently through the EOC, any of the processes that we can change and update." Because next, time, it might not be a drill.
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