On Thursday, May 25, staff from Snoqualmie, North Bend, Carnation Duvall, the Snoqualmie Tribe and King County gathered at the Snoqualmie Fire Department to take part in an mock earthquake emergency management exercise.
The disaster response exercise was organized by Takouba Security, a consulting company that specializes in disaster and emergency management. Gail Harris, a consultant from Takouba, said the Valley cities contracted the organization to host the exercise.
During the exercise, staff from each city had to respond to a variety of problems caused a by a 7.2 earthquake on the South Whidbey Island Fault. Some of the impacts included a blackout, medical treatment, damaged roads, community shelters, public outreach and a lack of communication options.
“It would pretty much be catastrophic, it would isolate everybody, and so we are learning how to work together and how to work with the county” she said. “We brought players here from the state, the utilities, the National Guard and the county so people can put a face with a name and can learn the processes that are in place to help communicate and help the cities when a disaster like this happens.”
Harris said the cities dealt with problems including injured people walking into the city from the freeways, disease breaking out in shelters, and coordination of medical treatment and supplies. Every 30 minutes, the group skipped 12 hours ahead to deal with new problems and follow through on solutions that can take days.
“We started at 1 p.m., then after half and hour we advance to 1 a.m. so now things are happening in the dark,” she said. “It’s already dark because we have no electricity, but we have looting going on, so do we need a county policy on curfew? They’ve already talked about that with the county and are going to be coming out with a county-wide ordinance for the next few days until they can get their grip around what’s happening, because its pretty catastrophic.”
The exercise was designed to help each city identify gaps in their emergency management preparations and promote cross-city and cross-organization communication, Harris explained. Participants on each city team identified how they track emergency services and people in events with limited resources.
The North Bend team discuss disaster relief measures with Police Chief Perry Phipps during the earthquake drill. (Evan Pappas/Staff Photo)
The Snoqualmie team examine the map of the city to plan their response to the mock earthquake. (Evan Pappas/Staff Photo)
Snoqualmie staff discuss the steps needed to deal with a power outage. (Evan Pappas/Staff Photo)
