If there was a disaster or serious emergency in your community, would you know where to go for reliable and accurate information? And would you trust information from public officials? Emergency responders, health officials and Clinton County leaders participated in a tabletop exercise that outlined an unfolding crisis and asked officials to determine how they would get relevant information to the public. North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley was among the media invited to participate in a mock press conference that quizzed the participants.
When a disaster exercise is held, people often see bloodied actors with scores of emergency responders racing to a scene — perhaps a simulated airplane crash, bus accident, or massive fire. But Clinton County’s exercise on Wednesday was more .... cerebral.
About 60 people met inside an auditorium to hash out how to coordinate efforts to inform the public during a county-wide crisis. CVPH Medical Center Director of Emergency Management and Life Safety Mike Calhoon began the session.
“We’re going to test the readiness of each agency and organization to provide information to the public. Some agencies here do not have public information officers. What’s the biggest failure during an emergency? Communication.”
Clinton County Health Department Emergency Preparedness Director Mark LaFountain then outlined the crisis scenario.
“So our scenario: across the United States a new infection identified by the CDC as a virus. What are the symptoms? Itchy, sore throat, sneezing fatigue and fever. Advanced infection will be hallucinations: the taste of cotton candy and seeing butterflies.”
In break-out sessions, attendees discussed what should be in any potential press releases or social media updates.
To help make the information dissemination real, organizers of the exercise brought in student and professional journalists from the region. LaFountain popped in periodically to chat with the journalists in a side-room while the break-out sessions played out.
"So originally we were going to have you guys out there. At the same time it’s probably a cool idea for the students to ask questions to the career reporters and journalists.”
“Like, I know that they have mentioned tasting cotton candy and seeing butterflies,” one student notes. “But is anyone seeing anything else? Is anybody tasting anything else?”
A second student poses, “How do we differentiate someone that has either knowingly or unknowingly consumed recreational drugs?”
LaFountain tells them, “Ask those questions because I think it will be cool to stump ‘em.”
During a mock press conference those and other questions were asked about a dummy virus labeled DC-26. Clinton County Director of Public Health Jeffrey Sisson moderated.
“Any questions?”
Journalism student Gabrielle Wrisley asks, “With what happened with COVID, there are people that believe that wearing a mask isn’t going to help. What can we do to address that concern?”
Sisson told her, “At this point that’s a personal choice.”
“When and how will we know if people are hallucinating because of the DC-26,” asks another student, “or if it’d be like hallucinogenic drugs?”
“Excellent question,” responds Erica Moore. “We in the medical field are asking the same question.”
Following the exercise, Sisson said it was an opportunity for officials to practice something that you don’t do often, or at all.
“Drilling for emergency preparedness is something that, at least in public health, we’ve been doing for a very long time. I will say that after COVID those things kind of fell off a little bit because there was a real-life response that went for such a long period of time. So I think we’re getting back into that.”
CVPH Medical Center Infection Prevention Manager Erica Moore described the breakout session as somewhat chaotic.
“No one was throwing tomatoes and oranges, right! We weren’t doing that. But it was like, okay, what do we have at the present? What are we going to share? So we kind of had to settle down and then we kind of had a who’s really sharing what with what. And that was the chaos of let’s settle down. Let’s talk about where we’re at.”
SUNY Plattsburgh freshman Broadcast Journalism and Digital Media Production student Addison Burt found the exercise an important learning experience.
“It’s hard because there’s so many questions you want to ask. So really just trying to like narrow down like what is the most important question to ask. Especially when it’s like regarding the public and like public safety, like you want to make sure that you’re getting those questions first.”
The Clinton County Multi-Agency Coordination group is taking feedback from participants to determine areas that need improvement, potential action steps and any changes that would improve a similar exercise.
