Vancouver Community was “Shaken”
On October 6, Vancouver Community participated in a Functional Emergency Exercise. The scenario was a simulated 6.9 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in central Georgia Strait. Power was intermittent and staff and clients were injured during the mock emergency.
“By practicing this kind of exercise it allow us to test and improve our procedures and readiness,” said Rocio Andrews, health emergency management supervisor.
This functional exercise was one of the events planned in the lead up to the Great British Columbia ShakeOut Drill on October 15th. A large earthquake can hit our region at anytime. This means we must all do our part and be prepared.
DCHC’s Incident Command Post activated to deal with the aftermath of a mock earthquake.
As part of this functional exercise, the following components of the emergency plan were tested:
- Set up of the VC Emergency Operations Centre
- Set up of Incident Command Posts
- Command, control & reporting structure of VC
- Roles, responsibilities and forms
- Communication between site(s) and the EOC
A total of 50 staff participated at different sites, including:
- Raven Song Community Health Centre
- Primary Outreach Services
- Pender Community Health Centre
- Downtown Community Health Centre
- Three Bridges Community Health Centre
- Emergency Operations Centre
Vancouver Community staff members are reminded that they should personally be prepared by having a personal or family emergency plan developed and have emergency supplies on hand. To help staff, Health Emergency Management BC has a series of resources to help you and your family get prepared.
Thank you to everybody who participated on this exercise, it was a great success!