Aside from updating its disaster plan, Homer also should conduct a survey of the hospital and medical clinics, Homer Electric Association and the city’s public works department to see how prepared they are to operate if disaster strikes, Painter said in a memo.
The city also needs to officially designate shelters and stock them with cots and food, according to Painter.
City employees and elected officials should be trained in disaster response and survival, Painter said, adding that every member of the city staff should be ready to fill different roles in a “disaster command structure.”
“Even the library needs to know what to do if an 8.0 (magnitude) earthquake hits,” Painter said during a presentation to the council last week.
The city’s proposed 2006 budget includes seed money to kick start an update of the city’s current plan, which will probably require the help of a consultant.
The city’s disaster plan is one of two plans in place to manage natural or human-made disasters in the area, Painter said. The other is the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s plan — a document that, at 400-pages thick needs to be edited and condensed, he said. “You can’t pull a 400-page document off the shelf and know how to use it,” Painter said.
Homer Mayor Jim Hornaday asked Painter who takes immediate responsibility to evacuate the Homer Spit in the case of a major earthquake, a tsunami or other disaster.
The city’s emergency plan says the initial incident commander at the scene of an emergency can be any city department head; the National Incident Management System adopted by the state says the first responder on the scene assumes incident command until he or she is replaced by a higher-ranking person, Painter said. If a disaster is declared by borough or state officials, then elected officials would have a greater role, he said.
As for other residents, everyone can help prepare by training themselves to be self-sufficient if a disaster occurs, Painter said. The Community Emergency Response Technician (CERT) training teaches basic procedures for assisting families and neighbors to survive a disaster, and the borough has planned a class in Homer this month.
Painter encouraged the city to promote the class, which is being held through Homer Community School. The course began Monday and continues from 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Saturday and 6-8:30 p.m. Monday and Wednesday at Homer High School. A disaster drill will follow from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Oct. 29.
State would respond in flu pandemic
In the case of a flu pandemic, both Bob Painter and David Gibbs, who directs the borough’s Office of Emergency Management, said local emergency resources would only have a supporting role. He said the Alaska Department of Health and Social Service’s Division of Public Health would assume responsibility for quarantining and isolating people in the case of a major flu pandemic, last seen in 1918 and 1919 when a Spanish flu outbreak killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people worldwide and 500,000 in the United States.
The state has an epidemic response plan, said Painter, that would result in a quick statewide deployment.
“Our (and other cities’) involvement would be purely support with logistics and assisting Public Health in whatever we could,” Painter said.
Gibbs said borough officials are considering a tri-borough meeting with Matanuska Borough and Anchorage officials to discuss procedures in the case of a flu outbreak.
Countries around the world have recently placed large orders for anti-flu drugs after an avian flu, called an H5N1 strain, spread from Asia to the Middle East and Europe. Scientists worry the flu, which has led to the slaughter of millions of birds, could mutate into a form easily transferable from human to human.
Chris Eshleman can be reached at chris.eshleman@homernews.com.
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