All of our local communities have been hard at work with "Emergency Preparedness Fairs" and shelter exercises to provide the general public with information about how to prepare for an emergency. Hopefully, the people we have met and talked to realize the importance of emergency preparedness and having a "go-kit" ready in our cars, homes and offices to support us in case of an emergency. Items to pack in a "go-kit" are available from American Red Cross, Hawaii Chapter at Preparing for a Disaster for People with Disabilities and Other Special Needs, State Civil Defense at Disaster Preparedness Kit Information, and at County Civil Defense agencies. Please get your checklists and prepare your kits to be ready for an emergency in the event one occurs.

September 2012 is National Emergency Preparedness Month, so please visit a fair in your area, prepare a "go-kit" and practice your preparedness plan with your family to become familiar with what to do and where to meet in the event of an emergency.

Registration at UH Maui College 2012 Exercise

The UH Maui College Nursing program was engaged by the District Health Office to participate in disaster response drills. The dispensing of medical counter-measures was the second training exercise conducted with student nurses. A larger scale exercise will be conducted in the 2013 Maui Emergency Support Function exercise in March, 2013.

The local community is looking to provide training to students so that if the need arises to provide medical counter-measures to the community, the students will be able to provide to students and staff at the UH Maui College. As these training exercises continue, the graduating students will be trained to support health agencies in whichever jurisdictions they work in throughout the U.S. as part of the emergency response to a public health incident. The UH Maui College nursing faculty recognizes the benefits of training the nurses in disaster response exercises, and they fully support Maui's efforts.

A free disaster training course was also conducted in July at a location in Pukalani to educate people about the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) for basic disaster and response skills such as fire safety, light search and rescue and disaster medical operations. CERT is open to individuals ages 18 and older, and is taught by Maui Fire Department instructors. For more information about future classes, contact Charnan Caroll, Civil Defense staff specialist and CERT program manager at 270-7285 or at cert@mauicounty.gov. 

Marc Nishimoto

Public Health Preparedness Planner, Maui County

1 August - Special Needs & Medically Fragile First Responder Training (Mayor's Office)

2 August - Cellular Mobile Alert System training conducted by Alerting Solutions, Inc.

6-10 August - Homeland Security Emergency Exercise Program training (HSEEP) SCD Oahu

13 August - Iron Man Competition Initial Planning Conference (IPC) West Hawaii Civic Center

14 August - Governor's Hurricane Executive seminar

15-16 August - Emergency Support Function (ESF), Web EOC, and Hurricane TTX

18 August - OLA PONO KO KA'U 'OHANA Health and Wellness for the families of Ka'u

18 August - Hawaii Volcano Observatory Centennial alumni lu'au

21-23 August - Fundamentals in Grants Management

27 August - NOAA International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC) 16-18 international visitors for an orientation of your EOC, and training on earthquake/tsunami operations

31 August - Tsunami School Conference with Department of Education

The new service is an addition to the existing AlertSanDiego, a countywide automated phone alert system. AlertSanDiego lets users register cellphones, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) numbers and email addresses with the system for receiving emergency alerts. According to the AlertSanDiego website, listed and unlisted land line numbers are already included in the system and don't require registration.

Accessible AlertSanDiego now enables the county to send those alerts in alternate formats. Stasia Place Richardson, senior emergency services coordinator for the OES, said the service is designed to address what's known as the "access and functional needs" community, which includes people with physical limitations, as well as non-English speakers and others.

Read the entire article and view a video at:

http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Accessible-AlertSanDiego-Brings-Emergency-Notifications-via-Text-Voice-and-Video.html

By Sarah Rich on August 1, 2012.

Mahalo to Larry Littleton for sending the article!