Statewide Medical and Health Exercise: Disaster Preparedness Drill

There were disaster preparedness drills held though out the state a couple weeks ago.  Each county devised their own scenario, but the theme was terrorist attack.  I was invited to participate in the drill for Santa Clara County, representing behavioral health.  We were on the third floor of the Sheriff's office where the have the Emergency Command Center.  There was a table in the middle for the command captain and his immediate team.  Then beyond that were other important players, including behavioral health, animal control, public health, medical examiners office etc.  They have a system set up where in real time a worker was monitoring the ambulances and available space of all the hospitals.  In this way they knew which hospital could take someone, and where their were ambulances available to get them there.  It was quite a system.