By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hay Post
First responders encountered a flipped car and bloodied patients buried under debris in a damaged building Tuesday during a Hays disaster drill.
The drill was conducted at two sites — St. Francis Community Services and Hays Middle School.
Hays USD 489 tested its new Raptor reunification system during the drill. This was the first test of the Raptor system for the district.
The software is supposed to notify guardians of where their children are in case of disaster.
Organizers said they believed the HMS drill went well. The team was at the reunification site within 23 minutes.
The primary reunification site for Hays Middle School is the North Oak Community Church, which is across the street from the school.
Drill participants discussed Tuesday the need to have alternate sites in case the church is comprised. Those have been established by the school district.
Tuesday was a sunny day, but if a tornado had hit, officials would likely be dealing with rain, hail and winds in the aftermath of a tornado.
They also would likely be dealing with many frightened parents, which would further complicate reunification and control of the scene, first responders said.
Participants said they thought the school staff needs more training on the system.
Julie Zollinger, USD 489 psychologist and crisis consultant, was a member of the drill team at Hays Middle School.
"We needed to know what was working and wasn't working, because that opens up more resources for us," she said.
Toby Prine, northwest regional coordinator for the Kansas Department of Emergency Management, was an observer at the St. Francis site. He said he did not see anything that needed improvement.
"What we saw was a very microscopic piece of a big disaster," he said. "There's going to be 10,000 other things going on."
Prine said reunification is a giant piece of a disaster. During the aftermath of the Greensburg tornado, patients were sent to five hospitals in the state. No one was tracking where patients were going. Once the injured arrived at the hospitals, they were tracked by injury, such as broken leg, and not name.
Ellis County Emergency Management, Saint Francis Ministries, Hays USD, 489, Hays Medical Center, Ellis County EMS, Hays Fire Department, and Hays Police Department all participated in the drill in coordination with the Statewide Tornado Drill.
High Plains Mental Health also had a representative at the hospital. In a real disaster, crisis counselors would be deployed to the hospital and disaster scenes to help those who were affected.
Lyle Pantle, assistant director of fire Ellis County Fire and EMS, said he thought the exercise went well.
At the St. Francis site, first responders had to rescue multiple actors from a building that had been damaged by a tornado. The actors had fake blood applied to simulate injuries. First responders had to triage and treat the actors as they would patients in a real mass casualty situation.
Hays firefighters also had to extricate a dummy from an overturned car.
HaysMed remained open to normal emergency traffic and patients, but staff there also participated in the drill. The emergency department distributed stuffed animals with tags indicating their injuries to various departments of the hospital so they could practice their disaster response.
After the drill, participants met for a debriefing session to discuss ways emergency crews could improve disaster response.
A formal review of the drill will be conducted in April.
