Emergency Planners Seeking Ways to Reach All Residents
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But what if the crisis isn't in a big city but a small town; what if it goes on for days, or weeks or years? How do you make sure the right information is getting to the people who need it most? Especially those less likely to pay attention to or have access to local media outlets, even this Web site.
The Northern Berkshire Community Pandemic Planning Committee is trying to close that information gap by determining at-risk populations and ways to communicate with them.
"Emergency planning is always a work in progress," said Sharon Leary of Northern Berkshire Healthcare, which has taken the lead in the preparedness planning in North County.
The committee has been working for some time but hadn't tackled perhaps the hardest part of its plan — developing communication lines to at-risk populations such as children, veterans, disabled, non-English speakers, immigrants, housebound, elderly and mentally ill.
Representatives from some two dozen social service organizations and agencies met to brainstorm at North Adams Regional Hospital on Tuesday afternoon. Led by Leary, the new subcommittee identified special populations and the organizations that would best be used as channels of informations.
Emergency management groups have been around for decades but the terrorist attacks of 2001 and what scientists say is a heightened risk of pandemics has reinvigorated old Cold War-era planning — often with a shot of funding from the federal Homeland Security Department.
As its name states, the Northern Berkshire plan is being based on a pandemic that would require the dissemination of information and access to medical aid and social services over a lengthy period of time to residents who would, for the most part, be encouraged to socially isolate themselves to prevent the spread of virus. It would also be initiated in part for other types of local disasters, both natural and man made.
Key agencies and individuals are being asked to fill out forms indicating what population they serve and what resources they have. For example, City Councilor Marie Harpin, who heads Northern Berkshire Community Action and who was at the forum, asked her fellow councilors to fill out the forms at Tuesday's meeting.
Along with politicians, the group is looking at housing project managers, volunteer organizations, municipal boards and state agencies. Local clergy are also going to be approached.
"They're definitely on the list for getting information out to the community," said Leary.
Tuesday's brainstorming session was the first step in compiling data that will be folded into the overall emergency plan. The group is using Census data to locate high concentrations of at-risk populations. Leary hopes that the data could be used to create a map that would allow the planning committee to better target the delivery of medical and other services.
The next step, said Leary, is to get the assessment forms back and review the information. The subcommittee will likely meet in June to go over the returned results.
