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PR-02/26/2008: San Mateo County Health Department and Cities Practice Door-to-Door Delivery of Medic

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 26, 2008 San Mateo County Health Department Contact: Beverly Thames, (650) 573-3935   San Mateo County Health Department and Cities Practice Door-to-Door Delivery of Medicine Silver Dragon Drill II Slated for March 13, 2008 SAN MATEO, Calif. -- On March 13, as part of the "Silver Dragon" emergency drill, Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) working with the Foster City and San Mateo Fire and Police Departments and the San Mateo County Health Department (SMCHD), will go door-to-door delivering earthquake preparedness information in areas of Foster City and San Mateo from 9 a.m. until noon. The drill will test the County's ability to receive and distribute large quantities of medicine and medical supplies from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). The CERT volunteers will have the opportunity to practice their emergency response training and check their readiness to provide assistance to their communities. During the Silver Dragon II drill, the distribution method of door-to-door delivery will be tested using earthquake preparedness brochures instead of medicine. The County Health Department will document how many households CERT volunteers can reach in three hours and test communications for contacting the local SNS receiving, staging and storing warehouse and its own distribution site using satellite phones, handheld radios and HAM radios. The County Office of Emergency Services will assess its notification and resource requesting capability and its non-traditional forms of communication (such as HAM radio). The Health Department and Foster City conducted a similar exercise in January 2007. Dubbed Silver Dragon I, the exercise was limited to one neighborhood and approximately 1,300 households. To add an additional element of reality to this year's drill, the exercise planners have included the City of San Mateo and identified houses that will present realistic, simulated communications and decision-making challenges to the team members. The SNS was originally designed to provide immediate medical care in an emergency event like an explosion or a bioterrorist attack. It will be deployed in the event of a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out (such as, a terrorist attack, flu outbreak or earthquake). Once Federal and local authorities agree that the SNS is needed, medicines can be delivered to any state in the U.S. within 12 hours. This exercise will test San Mateo County's existing plans to receive and distribute SNS medicine and medical supplies to local communities as quickly as possible. While waiting for the SNS shipment to arrive, San Mateo County is prepared to distribute medicine and supplies from its own pharmaceutical stockpile. ### Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) http://www.bt.cdc.gov/stockpile/index.asp Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) San Mateo County CERT Training Calendar http://www.smcready.org/Community/Training.html  City of Foster City Contact: Fire Department (650) 286-3350, fire@fostercity.org http://www.fostercitycert.org City of San Mateo Contact: Fire Department (650) 522-7960, rcook@cityofsanmateo.org http://www.sanmateocert.org San Mateo County's Community Alert System, SMC Alert, http://www.smcalert.info/ Sign up for free to send emergency alerts, notifications and updates to your cell phone, pager, PDA and/or e-mail account.