For the past several years those of us in Emergency Management have been taking steps within our cities to deal with the potential impacts of a pandemic outbreak. My sincere hope is that the discovery of the H1N1 Novel Influenza Virus is not going to turn into a pandemic event, but if it were to, I know that we have had the discussions and made plans for how to go about dealing with the impacts.
Having said that, however, you will never be able to plan for every eventuality and our plans for the pandemic are based on an “All Hazard” approach to dealing with emergencies. We have used other events within our city to try out our plans for dealing with staffing shortages in critical areas, the kinds of shortages that would most certainly occur in a pandemic. We have learned lessons from those staffing models and are aware of the issues that go with them.
Our city website has links for our citizens to go to to keep up with this developing story. As of this blog post the situation is not changing too rapidly, but in the world of Emergency Management it is best to always stay alert and keep in a perpetual state of planning and refining plans as the situation evolves.
