Transcription:
How Prepared are You for an Emergency?

Denise Schnabel: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Outer Banks Health, the official podcast series of the Outer Banks Hospital and Medical Group. Each month, we feature guests to discuss not only health-related topics, but community topics as well. We are your hosts, Denise Schnabel.

Wendy Kelly: And I'm Wendy Kelly. So most of us do not like to actually say this out loud, but it's hurricane season.

Denise Schnabel: Oh God, Wendy. Did you just say the H word?

Wendy Kelly: I did. So, Denise, what do you think is the most important thing for our residents and visitors to know about hurricane season?

Denise Schnabel: That's a great question. Oh, I know. I know. Bring in your trash cans, so that it doesn't projectile onto your neighbors.

Wendy Kelly: Well, kind of. But really, it's about preparation. As good old Benjamin Franklin said, "By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail." So while most residents have probably heard about the importance of being hurricane-ready, we probably could all use a refresher course, which is why we thought it would be a good idea to bring an expert in on the subject.

Today's guest is a 30-year veteran of the Coast Guard. So he is well-versed in planning for, responding to and managing a wide variety of natural and manmade incidents. He holds advanced degrees in emergency management and public administration and is a certified emergency manager. Say hello to Drew Pearson, our Director of Dare County Emergency Management. Hey, Drew!

Denise Schnabel: How are you?

Drew Pearson: Denise and Wendy, thanks for having me. I'm great. It's great to be with you.

Denise Schnabel: Thank you for joining us and thank you for your service to the Coast Guard. We must mention that.

Wendy Kelly: Yes.

Drew Pearson: It was a great career. Thirty years of fun, 30 years of public service. And now, I'm here.

Denise Schnabel: Yeah, that's great. Well, we're glad you are. So before we begin, some of our listeners may think you were part of EMS, Dare County EMS, but you're not, right?

Drew Pearson: That's right. The Dare County Emergency Medical Services is just that, emergency medical services. I run the Dare County Emergency Management Department. We have a great emergency medical services department under the leadership of Jenny Collins, our chief. And completely different entities, though we do work together at times, but they don't work for me.

Wendy Kelly: So, Drew, what do you think is really important for folks to know about emergencies in general?

Drew Pearson: Well, they need to know that they can probably experience one at some point in their lives if they haven't already. And emergencies vary in the size and scope. They can be a simple, not that it's simple, but a car accident could be an emergency to somebody, or it could be a hurricane. It could be something that is life-threatening, or it could be something that just puts them not at ease any longer. And they can happen at any time and people need to be ready for them. They need to think about them and they need to plan for them.

Denise Schnabel: Does your department deal with car accidents? Are you all on scene on those?

Drew Pearson: My department, not necessarily, not all the time. You know, if it's a large, multiple vehicle accident, a large bus with mass casualties as possible, we could be there to help those first responders that will be there when there is a car accident. Or those events that aren't of this scope and scale that they need additional resources to help solve the problem and take care of the people that are at risk or been injured.

Wendy Kelly: Or they could have some hazardous substance, right? Would you guys get involved with that?

Drew Pearson: It would have to be something that's not like gasoline. Most of the fire departments are very well equipped to handle those simple hazardous material releases. But if it's a large tanker truck with lots of petroleum on it and we need to bring more resources into control that threat, then we might be involved. But typically, thank God, out here in the Outer Banks, we don't see that very often. Most of them are those small problems, but we're ready for the big ones as well.

Denise Schnabel: Very good. Okay. So here we go. We're going to talk about the H word, hurricanes. How can people prepare and give us any advice to those who do not listen to the warnings?

Drew Pearson: Yeah. You know, you use the H word, but it's year-round. Our challenges with weather, they're year-round. It's not just in that's during the hurricane season. We have northeasters that bring weather impacts to us. We have impacts year round out here in the Outer Banks, and we've seen them taking place more often, and roads getting overwashed more frequently than we had in the past.

So I would just encourage everybody to be ready all the time. And it doesn't matter if it's during hurricane season or during a winter season, they need to be ready for what's going to take place. And a lot of that involves having a plan. They need to think about what they need to do when that threat is there. Whether it's a hurricane or a northeaster, or a car wreck, they need to have a plan for what they're going to do for that. They need to have their disaster supplies ready. They need to have their kit ready. Three to five days, how's that? Three to five days of stuff on hand to make sure they're ready, even if they're not in the middle of the winter. You got to change it up. You have some warm weather stuff in there, cold weather stuff, and switch it out. Get that kit ready and keep it ready. There's a lot of things people can do to get ready.

Denise Schnabel: So what are some things in the kits?

Drew Pearson: Well, there's a great resource at readync.org, the whole list of things that people should have in their kit. But don't forget about just the people, remember the pets, the medications.

Denise Schnabel: Thank you for mentioning the pets.

Drew Pearson: All of those things that are there that you need. Water, food, clothing. But go to readync.org or ready.gov, and there's a list of things that people should have in their kits and tailor them to your family, tailor them to your particular needs, but make sure they're good for that three to five-day duration, because you might be that long without having other ways to get the things you need.

Denise Schnabel: And I'm guessing you probably help more of the people who do not have that kind of resource, right? The people who don't have the kits and are not prepared, or do you?

Drew Pearson: Well, we encourage everybody to have a plan. We encourage everybody to be ready to take action, to protect themselves. And for those that don't, that aren't able to, we're there for them. We're there to help as best we can. But the things that they need to do, just to have that plan, know what they're going to do, if they don't have the kit, don't have this. Just know that if they hear the announcement on the radio, that the evacuations take place and they can't get to where they need to be in someplace safe, that they can call us. That they'll listen for the phone number, we'll take good care of them as best we can, but really people need to take care of themselves. And you never want to rely on somebody else when you can rely on yourself.

Wendy Kelly: That's good advice. Good advice. Does the Outer Banks have any hurricane shelters?

Denise Schnabel: Or any emergency shelters?

Drew Pearson: We do not do pre-storm sheltering on the Outer Banks. So you all live out here, people that live out here know that we got a lot of bridges. We've got a lot of spots where, you can become isolated very quickly. So we do not shelter pre-storm here. If we have to shelter after a storm, or for some other reason, like a power outage or cold weather, we have the ability to do that. We have locations that we can do that. And we have a great staff at our social services department that help us open those Red Cross partners and that. But hurricanes, pre-storm, we do not, because we do not want people to be stuck in their shelter. And shelters are the last place you want to be. Have that plan. The shelter is a safe place, but there's no amenities. There's nothing there except a safe place. So have a plan that gets you someplace safe where you can be comfortable where you may have family to help you out. Don't rely on a shelter. Shelters are the last place you want to be during any event.

Denise Schnabel: You think of all those people that were at-- what was it down in Louisiana? The dome?

Drew Pearson: At the Superdome.

Denise Schnabel: Yeah. When Katrina--

Wendy Kelly: That's a good example. Yeah.

Denise Schnabel: And we did want to relay in that, that the hospital, even though we remain open all the time with the skeletal crew, we are not considered a hurricane shelter. So you were talking about the alerts and to listen for the phone number and stuff. Tell us about the OBX Alerts and how somebody can get signed up.

Drew Pearson: Yeah, OBX Alerts is our mass notification system that we have in the county. It's in partnership with the six towns. It's a system that we have. People can go to obxalerts.com and they can register and set up a profile and they can manage their own profile. They can put their information in that we ask for their address, a phone number, email address, and they can go and set that up. They can also tell us things that are important to them that they may want us to know, like if they have special medical needs. Do they have special needs that they need to be helped with? And they can put that information and we can pull that during a disaster. So you can create a profile in advance, which we encourage everybody to do. And you can manage your alerts, what you want to get. Do you want to just get the emergency alerts? Do you want to get the things that come out from a town? Do you want to get Outer Banks beach conditions? Do you want to know what the conditions on the beach are? You can do that in advance. If you're not willing to do it in advance and you just want to get it the last minute, you can send a text to Dare Emergency Alerts at 77295, and that'll sign you up just for text messages. So you can do it with a full profile or you can do it quickly if you need to. And we advertise that information as part of our media releases when we start to stand up and get going.

Denise Schnabel: So what is that address again?

Drew Pearson: Obxalerts.com.

Denise Schnabel: Obxalerts.com. It's a very valuable resource.

Wendy Kelly: It is.

Denise Schnabel: I know I've used it.

Wendy Kelly: I'm signed up. That's why my phone is always dinging all day long. So a lot of folks have moved here in the last few years, relocated here. And for folks that really haven't gone through a hurricane, category hurricane, what can you tell them it's like, and what should they pay attention to aside from being prepared?

Drew Pearson: Well, the first thing I would tell them is not to focus on the category of a hurricane. You mentioned a category. Categories just tell you what the wind's going to do. Focus on what the impacts are being forecast to be. And storm surges are life-threatening. That's the killer. Storm surges take lives. So we'd say run from the water, hide from the wind, that's our moniker. Get away from that water. But storm surges take lives and people need to focus on the impacts that are being forecast by the hurricane center, not necessarily the category of the storm.

And for those folks that have just moved here, talk to your neighbors, talk to the people in your community. Come to our community forums when we offer them. Ask us questions about what to do. We'll have a couple coming up in August that people can join us on. They'll be advertised here shortly, but come and ask people. Talk to your neighbors.

Denise Schnabel: That's great.

Drew Pearson: Get the experience from the people that are in your neighborhood as to what they do or don't do. And then, if they say they're not going to evacuate, don't listen to them. Follow the evacuation orders. Because that's why we put them out, it's to keep people safe.

Denise Schnabel: So we covered it a little bit, other than hurricanes, what other situations do you deal with at the department?

Drew Pearson: Well, Dare County Emergency Management, all threats, all hazards, anything that can bring a, problem to our community. We work to coordinate the resources across all the different agencies. It could be an oil spill. It could be a large fire. It could be just about anything that overwhelms our community first responders, and they may need help that we may need to bring from our resources that are here in the county, from our state partners that are across North Carolina and from our federal partners to help us solve a problem that's taking place. So we're ready for just about anything and we train and prepare for all of it.

Denise Schnabel: So does Currituck, because live in Currituck, do they have their department of emergency management.

Drew Pearson: They do. And a great lady named Mary Beth Newns is their director and she's got a great department up there as well with the same goals to protect the people, prepare for, respond to and recover from everything.

Wendy Kelly: So with your time here in Dare County, do you have any interesting stories, any success stories, things that happened that you were like, "Wow"?

Drew Pearson: I never thought I'd have to deal with a pandemic, and I'm not saying that's a success story or an interesting story, but we did help coordinate the response through the COVID pandemic. And I think the lessons that have been experienced in Dare County with storms and other events set us up well to, we think, to succeed. Other people may not believe that, but we really worked hard with Sheila Davies, our great public health director, setting up and supporting information campaigns, vaccine clinics, testing clinics, all of the things that we needed to do, helping you out the hospital to make sure the hospital was ready, because we didn't know what this was going to bring when this first started. And our small community hospital here could have been easily overwhelmed and we kept it from happening. When I say that's a success story, there was a lot of trials and tribulations doing that. But those partnerships, those things that take place in a community, like hours paid off. Well, COVID's still ongoing. It's not over yet. People still need to get vaccinated, still need to do all those things to take care of themselves. It did allow us to weather a really challenging event in our community and in our world.

Denise Schnabel: I agree with that. I thought the response by Dare County was amazing in terms of the COVID.

Wendy Kelly: Well, it was a huge unknown. Complete unknown. And we are out here on a barrier island.

Drew Pearson: Yeah. It's hard to get through an unknown until you can look back in the rear view mirror and say, "We did the best we could. And I think we did a good job."

Denise Schnabel: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Drew Pearson: And I think we serve our community well, and then I credit a lot of that to our public health director, her staff, the hospital and all the partners that came together. But we helped in our way to bring that cohesiveness and keep everything working and moving forward.

Denise Schnabel: We didn't pay him to say that, by the way.

Drew Pearson: No, without a hospital, you don't have any way to take care of people.

Denise Schnabel: Good job, Drew. All right. So any last minute tips as we head into the season or in regards to emergencies in general? Any words of wisdom by Drew Pearson?

Wendy Kelly: In addition to all the words you've given us.

Denise Schnabel: Yes.

Drew Pearson: Storm surge is the threat. Know what that is. Look around our community. We've put up 27 storm surge poles around the community. They're multicolored poles, tell you how deep it might get in your community. They're out there. Go take a look at them. But really, I know you had Chad Motz on just maybe the event before me. And I love our ocean rescue staff and the folks from Duck to Harris village. But I would say we do have a campaign going on. It's called Love the Beach, Respect the Ocean. Visit our lovethebeachrespecttheocean.com website, share that with your friends and visitors that are coming to Dare County. They can sign up for our morning beach condition alerts by texting OBX beach conditions to 77295. And they will get updates, because they need to know what they're going to see before they go to the beach and before they get into the water. And the great work that Chad and the folks on the Ocean Rescue Teams are doing, talk to a lifeguard, swim near a lifeguard, but know what's going to happen before you get there. And Love the Beach, Respect the Ocean gives you some local safety tips on how to make sure you're safe at the beach.

Wendy Kelly: And I love how the lifeguards go up and down the beach and warn you, "Hey..." Even though you don't think one's coming, they'll go, "A storm is coming probably in about 10 minutes. You all might want to figure out what your plan is." No, it's good.

Denise Schnabel: Yeah.

Wendy Kelly: I mean, that's how you lose people if they're not aware of what's coming

Drew Pearson: Beautiful, sunny day, rip currents are in the ocean.

Wendy Kelly: Yeah. And that's what Chad was talking about.

Drew Pearson: And that's what can hurt so many people, is they just think it's so beautiful out, even the risk is low and they get caught in the current and they just can't get back in.

Denise Schnabel: All right. Well, this has been fabulous and informative, and we appreciate you coming here. This podcast is brought to you as a public service by the Outer Banks Hospital and Medical Group to access the Dare County Emergency Management Website. Visit darenc.com/department/emergencymanagement. Drew gave you a lot of helpful websites and phone numbers as well. If you've enjoyed this podcast, share it on your social channels. To hear more Outer Banks Health, check out the library at theobh.com/podcast. This is your host, Denise Schnabel. Stay safe