Vancouver Community Functional Exercise – “Shake it all the way”
On October 16, 2013 Vancouver Community was rocked with a “fictional” 6.5 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter just off the east coast of Vancouver Island. Power was intermitted and staff and clients were injured during the shaking.
This was of course a Functional Exercise to test Vancouver Community’s response. As part of this Functional Exercise, the following components of the emergency plan were tested
– Set up of the new VC EOC
– Command, control & reporting structure of VC
– Roles, responsibilities and processes within the EOC
– Communication between site(s) and the EOC
Regular testing of various components of the emergency plan and exercises such as this one allow staff members to practice their response activities in a safe learning environment and enables them to be more prepared during a real event. It also provides an environment where processes can be identified for improvements.
This Functional Exercise was one of the events planned in the lead up to the Great British Columbia ShakeOut Drill on October 17th at 10:17AM. The BC ShakeOut drill, the largest earthquake drill in the world, is designed to remind everyone that despite the lack of recent seismic activities in BC our region we are still living and working in an earthquake zone. A large scale earthquake can hit our region at anytime. This means we must all do our part and be prepared. Vancouver Community staff members are reminded that they should personally be prepared by having a personal or family emergency plan developed and emergency supplies stashed away. To help staff, Health Emergency Management BC has a series of resources to help you and your family get prepared (click here).
Thank you to everybody who participated on this exercise. It was a great success!
Ongoing response within the Vancouver Community Emergency Operations Centre (EOC).