County EMA holds annual disaster drill

Van Wert County EMA news

GLENMORE — The Van Wert County Emergency Management/LEPC held an annual exercise over the weekend that involved more than 40 participants. The drill was staged in the town of Glenmore and involved the Mercer Landmark facility being hit by a tornado with structure damage, which included an anhydrous ammonia leak and farm chemicals contaminating victims.

According to County Emergency Management Director Rick McCoy, the exercise is conducted under the Ohio EPA’s SERC guidelines and involved a number of objectives to perform to satisfy the evaluators and state EMA personnel observing the drill.

“Victims” included members of the Van Wert Civil Air Patrol, who were rescued in the supposedly collapsed buildings by emergency responders from the Wren, Ohio City and Willshire fire departments. Brickner Ambulance Service transported victims to the hospital.

Van Wert County Hospital Emergency Room personnel were tested on accepting multiple victims who first had to go through the hospital’s decontamination room before treatment of injuries could begin.

Also assisting were troopers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol on evacuation procedures for the area and Van Wert County Sheriff’s Department dispatch personnel, who were testing the new 800-MHz radio system.

The Van Wert Chapter of the American Red Cross also assisted at the EMA Emergency Operations Center on procedures of setting up a shelter in the event that an evacuation was necessary in a real scenario.

McCoy especially thanked the management of Glenmore Mercer Landmark for allowing its facility to be used and for assisting emergency personnel in using the Incident command system in coordinating the scene.