The county’s Integrated Waste Management and the public works
departments released a statement regarding Thursday’s drill that
drew response from additional agencies, leading to the closure of a
portion of San Juan Hollister Road.
The county’s Integrated Waste Management and the public works departments released a statement regarding Thursday’s drill that drew response from additional agencies, leading to the closure of a portion of San Juan Hollister Road.
The following is the statement:
“On Thursday, June 16, 2011 at approximately 11:00 a.m. San Benito County exercised its Hazardous Materials Area Plan for small incidents in the City of Hollister.
The goal of this exercise was to functionally test recent employee training in First Responder hazardous waste identification and removal.
The joint exercise simulated a real world scenario and initially called for the involvement of coordinated actions from San Benito County Public Works, Environmental Health, Hollister Fire Department and County Communications. As the event unfolded additional agencies, who were not part of the original drill, implemented their response protocols which included resources from San Benito Fire, Cal Fire and the Sheriff. The scenario involved a simulated injury and precautions undertaken due to changing weather conditions in the interest of public safety. This latter aspect unfortunately forced the temporary closure of Highway 156 at San Juan Hollister Road.
Upon completion of the exercise, a debrief was conducted to evaluate the plan and the response. Communication issues at a managerial level for the drill were identified and corrective action was implemented to drill planning policy. However, actions by law enforcement and fire agencies demonstrated the effectiveness of a coordinated response to a hazardous material incident.
‘Although the drill left its original scope and included others not notified in advance, from that point on it was successful in exercising excellent interoperability of multiple agencies of hazardous material incident management, tactics and strategy, including rescue of a victim and isolation and containment of an unknown substance,’ said CAL FIRE assistant Chief Phil Matteson.”
Look back for more details, including additional reaction.
For a prior story on the incident, go here.
