Getting Ready for Anything

SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass. — For a long time now, but especially since the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, emergency service personnel, community leaders and the nation as a whole have been more aware of the need to have a plan.

That’s where John J. Hart, director of Public Safety and Emergency Management at Harrington Memorial Hospital in Southbridge, and his wife, Linda, director of health education and chairwoman of the hospital’s Emergency Preparedness Committee, come in.

“Back in July of 2001, the Joint Commission put in a requirement that the hospital reach out into the community emergency services like EMS (Emergency Medical Services), fire, police, etc. Since I was a former policeman and knew a lot of them, I volunteered to lead that requirement,” Mr. Hart said in an interview conducted mostly by e-mail. “Then came Sept. 11, 2001. What that horrible day proved was that `the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.’ It showed the dire need of EMS, fire, police and hospitals to be better prepared and to have plans to respond together to a large emergency situation.”

Mr. Hart said it was this need that led him to recruit a team of emergency service personnel, political leaders and health services from Charlton, Southbridge and Sturbridge to create the Tri-EPIC Regional Emergency Planning Committee. Later, services from Dudley joined the effort and now work with state police, the Department of Homeland Security, local health boards and other agencies to plan for large-scale emergencies. “EPIC” in the name stands for Emergency Preparedness Incident Committee.

Since October 2001, monthly meetings at Harrington Hospital have been held on the second Tuesday of each month. The meetings allow local response teams from multiple communities to get together and share ideas as well as work on grants, which are especially difficult to obtain in the current economy.

The funds to start the emergency-conscious organization came from a grant via the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, and allows for “community outreach and education.” In 2008, Tri-EPIC was certified by the Massachusetts State Emergency Response Commission as a regional emergency planning committee. “Because Tri-EPIC is regional now we have better opportunities (for grants),” Mrs. Hart said.

Mr. Hart spoke highly of other Tri-EPIC members who worked tirelessly to get the project off the ground.

One of those dedicated members is Southbridge Chief of Police Daniel R. Charette. He participated in a Regional Pandemic Planning Workshop on March 11 with Tri-EPIC and about 120 other individuals, most of whom came from area service organizations.

“Overall I thought the drill went really well,” he said, “I’ve done a lot of these over all over the years. … It’s always helpful to get together.”

The chief also praised Mr. Hart and the rest of Tri-EPIC for their work in their communities and for their efforts to overcome territory boundaries and focus on regional preparedness efforts. He said that small towns in New England may not be able to handle large emergencies alone but can pull together to overcome times of trouble. “Everybody started thinking we’ve got to do things regionally. … It’s going back to the old civil defense days when people realize we had better work together and we’d better have a plan.”

The tabletop drill – an exercise in which emergency response participants meet and discuss a particular scenario – was funded through grant money from the state Department of Public Health and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, according to Mrs. Hart. Future drill plans include a live-action scenario drill on May 8.

Ric Skinner of Sturbridge, a consultant on geographic information systems, or GIS, also attended the drill. Mr. Skinner did the layout for Tri-EPIC’s latest initiative – a Web site that reaches out to all four of the participating communities in an effort to educate and prepare residents for, well, anything.

Mr. Skinner described the Tri-EPIC Web site as a “one-stop shop for emergency and disaster preparedness. … When the disaster hits, it’s not the time to be planning and preparing. Then it’s too late.” He emphasized, “Have your plan in effect, have your communications set up.”

The Tri-EPIC Web site explains how to do all of that and more, linking to involved town government Web sites and emergency services as well as to preparedness information, current updates from the Federal Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, first response help and other pertinent data, including Community Emergency Response Teams and volunteer opportunities. There’s even a survey to help the team make changes that visitors feel might make the site more useful.

The Web site is partly funded through a grant from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, which, said Mr. Hart, “is a yearly stipend that is given to regional groups to offset expenses incurred such as mailings, stationery, community outreach, etc. We do not do much in terms of mail because we get more `bang for our buck’ with things like staffing a display tent at community events like the Concert on the Common, Old Home Day, etc.”

After the March 11 drill, Mr. Hart said, “Really, a goal of Tri-EPIC from the start was to get everybody kind of playing in the same sandbox.”

Are you prepared for an emergency?

Visit Tri-EPIC’s Web site and find out:www.triepicrepc.org

Tri-EPIC’s meetings are open to the public.

If you’d like to go:

Meetings will be held on the second Tuesday of each month.

The next scheduled meeting will be at 8:30 a.m. April 14 in Conference Room 1 at Harrington Memorial Hospital in Southbridge.

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