Emergency preparedness
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two part story regarding Logan City’s emergency preparedness.
Disasters that may be heading Logan’s way will be up against ready and well-trained corps of city employees and emergency workers.
“It’s not what, it’s when,” said Robert Laursen, manager of Logan’s water and sewer department during the last 20 years.
Laursen said the Federal Emergency Management Agency visited Logan and found the city is as well-prepared as it needs to be for its size and credited the water and sewer department’s preparation as part of its favorable review of the city.
“We have standby power generators at every water site, as well as standby power for sewage,” Laursen said.
Laursen said during a disaster that could knock out power in Logan, emergency generators would take over the load and keep water flowing, both in and out.
“There are two things that are of immediate need in an emergency, clean water and the sewer,” he said. “Citizens would have no clue other than light and power being out that something was wrong.”
Laursen said the 24 employees of the water and sewer department receive refresher training every year, in which they learn emergency procedures. All employees have 72-hour kits and have received in-home training to take care of their families first before coming to work and getting Logan back online.
In the event of an emergency and depending on the extent of the damage, Logan has three emergency operation centers to choose from, Laursen said. These are: City Hall located at 255 N. Main St., the new Justice building located at 290 N. 100 West and the Logan City Service Center located at 960 W. 600 North.
Laursen said the city has many emergency items available.
“As a city, we have purchased tents, heaters, stoves, cots and meals ready-to-eat (MRE),” he said.
If extra water needs to be brought to citizens, Laursen said Logan can do that too.
“We have one water trailer with two tanks. One holds 1,200 gallons and the other holds 300 gallons,” Laursen said. “We also have six water bladders we can set up in neighborhoods. Each of those holds 300 gallons.”
For people who have noticed the square-shaped lakes on the west side of the valley, those are the largest aerated sewage lagoons in the world, Laursen said. They were built in 1968 and cover 500 acres and are typically seven or eight feet deep, he said.
Laursen said the lagoons, which have also withstood two earthquakes because of their unique construction, have been used as models for sewage lagoons around the world.
With its seven operating rooms, Logan Regional Hospital, a building founded on the premise of being ready for anything, also has emergency procedures ready to be put in action at a moment’s notice, said Shane Hone, public relations and marketing director.
“This is a full-service hospital,” Hone said. “That means that we have intensive care, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics, radiology and a laboratory. We can also stabilize and ship patients for thoracic [chest] or neuro [brain] surgery.”
Intermountain Health Care owns three life-flight helicopters the hospital can use to transport critical patients to Ogden or Salt Lake City, Hone said. The University of Utah has two helicopters and Bannock County has one, he said.
Hone said there are two levels of alert in which the hospital can engage – trauma alert and disaster drill.
“We try to be as ready as we can be,” Hone said.
He said the hospital is obligated to drill twice each year. Scenarios are created and the staff is drilled for a variety of emergencies from explosions to school incidents.
The drilling pays off, and last year, the hospital was put on trauma alert two times, Hone said.
When a bus hit a private vehicle that was transporting handicapped passengers in July 2000, the hospital received multiple patients, Hone said.
In November 2000, there was an explosion at South Cache Middle School in which a teacher mixing chemicals together caused a volatile reaction that sent glass shards flying through the room. The hospital received 31 patients at one time, Hone said.
“Our team does a great job at handling emergencies,” Hone said.
The hospital’s disaster plan involves the six general surgeons who work at the hospital and the hospital’s administration staff, and depending on the nature of the emergency, Hone said the hospital uses a calling tree to bring in extra assistance.
“We can call in extra resources like techs, physicians, nurses, aides and people to do crowd control,” Hone said.
He said the hospital staff depends on Chief Jeff Peterson and the Logan City Fire Department to determine how to deal with the number of people who will enter the hospital in an emergency.
“The [emergency] plan is contingent on communication with paramedics and the emergency medical technicians in the field,” Hone said.