After an Emergency: Using Mutual Aid to Help Rebuild a Local Government Department When Resources Are Limited

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

On December 2, 2015, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health (SBCDPH) suffered a traumatic terrorist attack causing 13 deaths and 22 wounded. Following the Waterman Incident (San Bernardino Shooting) on December 2, 2015, there was an immediate need to back fill staff for the Division of Environmental Health Services (EHS). At the time of the incident, EHS had 115 staff members. Due to the physical and emotional impacts to staff, many staff members did not come back to work. In the immediate days following, SBCDPH had to fill positions to sustain EHS operations to be able to continue providing essential services to the community. This task was essentially re-building EHS from the ground up. Through mutual aid cooperation from other local health jurisdictions and state agencies throughout California, the SBCDPH worked through the Medical Health Operational Area Coordination (MHOAC) and Regional Disaster Medical Health Coordination/Specialist (RDMHC/S) programs to deploy 165 personnel resources over a seven month period for Environmental Health Services. Counties including Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Luis Obispo answered the call to assist. State agencies such as the California Department of Public Health, Medical Waste Management, California Board of Water and Sanitation, and Cal Recycle also provided assistance and addressed state and local mandates. This was the largest mutual aid public health personnel deployment in California history. The plan for medical health mutual aid resource management was created prior to December 2nd, however, complete processes for implementation had not been developed at the state and local levels. The SBCDPH Preparedness and Response Program (PRP), and the RDMHS discovered there was no formal tracking system to collect responder data. The two entities worked together to develop a tracking strategy to manage the resources and get resources deployed timely.