‘Control the chaos’: Marin holds drill for mass casualty incident
A stage accident causes a propane explosion at a festival in downtown San Rafael. Flames burn people in the dense crowd. Panic spreads.
The disaster scenario was the basis for a training session Wednesday at the Marin County Civic Center campus, where county staff and volunteers practiced reuniting victims with relatives and friends at a simulated emergency center at Exhibit Hall.
“In real life, it’s going to be crazy, it’s going to be chaotic,” Vanessa Flores, program director for contractor Doberman Emergency Management Group, said before the exercise began. “How do we manage that as best as possible? How do we control the chaos as much as possible?”
The drill incorporated updates to the county’s emergency response plan. The county’s two-year project to update the plan was funded by federal grants and a $130,000 budget, said Brianna Rowland, a spokesperson for the Marin County Fire Department.
County supervisors are scheduled to review and consider adopting the plan next month.
The exercise involved setting up a “friends and relatives center” and a “family assistance center.”
“We want to stress the system today, with the intent there is something that will go wrong,” said Steven Torrence, the county’s emergency management director. “However, we want to know this environment so we can perfect it if it ever does happen.”
Jesse Regala Paran, chief operating officer for the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services, told the crew why their work matters.
“When the blank hits the fan, we know who comes running and comes to serve our community,” she told them. “People are losing their minds, they don’t know where to go. We are the people who show up for our community.”
During the exercise, a group of women portrayed football players who were anxious to find their missing coach. A county parks employee acted as someone who frantically walked in circles, shouting to see his father, before relief workers had him sit down and drink water. Some visitors walked around the intake table without giving information about missing people to the county staff.
The volunteers carried cards that displayed their characters’ particular crisis, such as seeking a missing child or contending with an injured family member.
American Red Cross volunteer Cathy Crowley played a 16-year-old who just lost her best friend. Ray Cooper, a volunteer, portrayed an “emotional” 20-year-old. Jim Devitt, another volunteer, had the role of someone pacing nervously.
“We’re looking for information and it’s hard when they say, ‘We’ll get back to you,’” Devitt said after the exercise. “I want information right now. Who is in the emergency room?”
Cooper said relief workers will provide information. “But the idea is that what’s happening is exacerbating the situation, so this is where the three of us work together,” he said.
The relatives or friends of victims were directed to one of a dozen stations for services such as financial assistance, mental health support, religious counseling and child care. A station for coroner services offered help for people who needed death certificates for relatives killed in the disaster. Chaplains for the sheriff’s office visited the waiting area to check on people waiting to reunite with relatives or friends.
Marin County Executive Derek Johnson told relief workers that every disaster is different.
“I know from a lot of experience that disaster response is a perishable skill,” he said. “It requires constant training, and on top of that, we have new players and new people in our organization for whom this may be a foreign concept.”
After the first session ended, volunteers returned to the Exhibit Hall theater.
“It really shows that hard work, investment and preparedness pays off,” said Niccore Tyler, chief assistant director of the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services. “It’s exciting when you see staff in an element like this.”