The Stevens County Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) met at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, July 21, 2015 at the Hugoton Fire Station / EOC at 110 West Fifth for their regular working lunch. It took awhile but the room slowly filled with a nice room full of members.
The 17 members present were RoGlenda Coulter, Bailey Esarey, Richard Everett, Brittany Fitzgerald, Joshua Grubbs, Pat Hall, Kathy Haynes, Cathy Hernandez, Debbie Hickson, Brent Inkelaar, Rodney Kelling, Courtney Leslie, Joy Lewis, John Moser, Paula Rowden, Susan Schulte and Phillip Thompson. Guests signing in were Terry Pierson and Josh Slawski.
The guests were introduced and welcomed. A savory meal furnished by the Hugoton EMS was enjoyed and appreciated by the attending group.
President Paula Rowden called the meeting to order. Minutes from the March 4 meeting were handed out and gone over. The agenda was presented with requests for any changes. There were none. The old business was that the different entities were to share details of their emergency plans. Approval of the minutes was accepted with a change from Richard Everett. He said the Health Department received some Ebola money and it was said this money could be used to buy other entities supplies. This needed to be cleared up – this money cannot be used or given to any other entity but the Health Department. Richard was at a recent meeting where this was made very clear.
New business was introduced by Rodney. There is a new emergency exercise available. Details were presented by Cathy Hernandez. It is an Emergency Operations Center, EOC, functional exercise being offered to the different counties. Most all the emergency entities of the county would be involved in the event and would be specially designed for each county. This is a requirement for health departments and hospital departments every five years. If it is decided to do this exercise – a date needs to be decided on. Rodney says it will last around four hours. This incident might be a train accident with hazardous material involved. It was decided to try for December. The date and time was decided on and members planned for it to last around four hours.
Paula then discussed a Web site, KS Train, available with opportunities to learn about public health, trainings for emergency preparedness, safety, etc. Anyone can register for this training account, giving that person the ability to keep track of what their training has involved.
More new business – Emergency Preparedness: Brittany Fitzgerald presented a slide show from Abengoa Bioenergy with an overall plan of what they are doing at their plant west of town. She showed the emergency preparedness people present where all of Abengoa’s people are to go in the case of an emergency. She also showed them all the different processes and where they take place, including the possible fire hazards and hazardous chemical storage unit. The question was raised of what the needs are to put out any fires or spills on location. Brittany assured the group each department is pretty contained so it would hopefully not spread. The group thanked Brittany for her presentation and expressed their gratitude that the company has a plan.
Joy Lewis told of a few details that WTG’s emergency plans entail. Black Hills is really in charge of the gas in town.
It was asked what to plan for the next meeting. Plans are needed for the EOC upcoming event. It needs to be realistic. Everyone was asked to research and figure out what their plans for this event would include. This will help the people unfamiliar learn and the ones with experience brush up on their skills and see what can be improved.
Next meeting was set for September 2, and the meeting adjourned.
