AMTS Beta F.I.S.H. Exercises

Exercise Name:

BETA F.I.S.H. Exercise - Martin
(Florida Intermediary Support to Hospitals)

Exercise Date:

Tabletop (Facilitated)	June 26, 2008	1:00pm
Drill (Facilitated)	July 10, 2008	9:00am

Exercise Location:

Tabletop (Facilitated)	Emergency Operations Center 800 SE Monterey Rd, 2nd Floor Stuart, Fl 34996	Map
Drill (Facilitated)	Martin County Fairgrounds 2616 SE Dixie Hwy Stuart, FL 34996	Map

Program Information

Florida's Department of Health has undertaken an initiative to reduce the level of patient surge on hospitals during Mass Causality Incidents by establishing county and regional Alternative Medial Treatment Sites (AMTS).

Martin County was selected as a Beta Test county for establishing an AMTS as part of a medical surge response to a mass casualty incident. The highest priority for the two exercises to be facilitated in Martin County (one Tabletop Exercise and one Drill Exercise) will be to test:

AMTS team member notification and activation.
The capability of the Martin County Medical Reserve Corps to provide support to the AMTS
The ability to staff in and track AMTS team members during activation.
The ability to track patients through the AMTS process.
Identification of AMTS maximum capacity and capabilities.

Exercise Purpose

The mission of this series of exercises was to build on the foundation already established in regards to the AMTS serving Martin County. During these exercises, AMTS team members went through an activation drill where they were contacted to deploy to a rally point then set up needed equipment then using establish SOPs manage a measurable patient load.

Exercise Mission

To provide a realistic building failure scenario which allowed the leadership of the county AMTS to analysis their capabilities.

Scenario Type

Shelter Failure Scenario

Summary

The scenario for both the Tabletop and the Drill Exercise was built around a strong category 3 hurricane striking the Martin County area. During the hurricane, Bessey Creek Elementary School located at 2201 SW Matheson Ave in Stuart, which is one of the facilities being used as an evacuation shelter, and housing an estimated 1,324 evacuates seeking safe shelter from the storm began to collapse after a large section of the roof was blown off as the storm's winds gust up to 141 MPH.

Unable to move the evacuees to other portions of the facility, the shelter management team was forced to have the evacuees ride out the storm in the severely damaged portion of the building.

As the storm continued to move through the area, injuries continued to occur among the men, women and children housed in the shelter. As the storm's wind began to subside, the true scope of the number of individuals injured begins to become a major contributing factor to the total number of individuals injured and killed as the storm moved through the region.

A call was made by the shelter manager to the ESF 6 representative at the Martin County EOC stating the seriousness of the situation. The ESF 6 representative notifies an ESF 8 representative also housed in the Martin County EOC.

Executive Summary

The series of exercises, one Tabletop and one Drill enabled the leadership of the county's AMTS to test its notification / activation system's ability to recruit and deploy an adequate number of members to meet the needs of victims from the shelter collapse, then to field test its Standard Operating Procedures by setting up a functioning AMTS, staffing and assigning AMTS leaders and members, and processing a reasonable number of patients through the AMTS.

First, in an effort to assess the knowledge of area emergency response agencies in the various functions of an AMTS, a Tabletop Exercies was facilitated in which a number of AMTS operational concepts were evaluated.

Second, a Drill format exercise to evaluate the Standard Operation Procedures of the AMTS was facilitated. These procedures included, but were not limited to:

Establishing an AMTS in the field including set-up of all appropriate equipment.
Registration, assignment and tracking of AMTS team leaders and members.
Ability to triage and treat a appropriate number of patients.