Vol. 8, No. 9, September 2012

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 Contents


URGENT – Update Your Contact Info

If you have not updated your contact and member information on the SART web site at http://www.flsart.org/SART/ajaxviewmember?pageID=0, please take a moment and review your posted telephone, email and other contact information. Many members have changed telephone or position or agency since initial posting. This is vitally important as we develop an effective planning and response community for agriculture and our animal responsibilities. University of Florida's IFAS web master Dr. Jiannong Xin has developed a format that takes just one minute to update, but only you can change your information.

The Value of Cooperation and an Updated Contact List

Situated on Florida's "Gold Coast," Palm Beach County has plenty of experience dealing with emergencies large and small. Although there was no subsequent federal disaster declaration, the area struggled with heavy rain and flooding during and following its early summer visit by Tropical Storm Isaac.

Captain David Walesky, Operations Manager (Field Services – 561-233-1212) at Palm Beach Animal Care & Control says local cooperation helped saved dozens of horses and goats from Isaac's high water. Gulfstream Park's satellite training center, Palm Meadows, just outside Boynton Beach, opened to provide stalls and dry land for several dozen horses whose barns and paddocks were impacted. Palm Meadows, which has been the winter home of five of the last seven Kentucky Derby winners, opened after Isaac dumped more than 13 inches of water on the area. "Their generosity allowed the county to avoid opening the public horse facility, which would have been very expensive for the horses and goats that arrived. Lots of cooperation made this work. The limit of our help was to let people know abut Palm Meadows. We didn't transport animals."

Palm Meadows, a state-of-the-art training facility owned and operated by MI Developments is located on 304 landscaped acres just outside Boynton Beach along Florida's Turnpike.

"We fielded some calls earlier in the week and then were contacted by the County Commission," said Gary Vandenbroek, manager at Palm Meadows. "We wanted to help any way we could, and so we offered Palm Meadows to those who have horses in standing water. We're just making sure everyone is comfortable."

Palm Meadows has provided a safe haven in the past for victims of storms. Just days after Hurricane Katrina devastated large areas of the Gulf Coast in 2005, Palm Meadows opened its facilities, including more than 230 furnished rooms, to hundreds of families from Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who had lost their homes.


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SART Advisory Board to Meet

UF's Dr. Joan Dusky (left) and FDACS' David Perry (right) will chair the Advisory Board meeting.

The SART Advisory Board will meet on October 10th from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. in Suite 200 of the Alachua Regional Service Center in Alachua. The Service Center is located at 14101 Hwy. 441, Alachua, FL 32615 Telephone: 386-418-5500.

Agenda items will include a discussion of Tropical Storm Debby response and the January 2013 SART Planning Meeting.

Agenda SART Advisory Board Meeting
October 10, 2012 – 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Alachua Regional Service Center
14101 Hwy 441, Suite 200, Alachua, FL 32615

Welcome – Joan Dusky/David Perry, Chairs
New SART Video – Joe Kight
Agriculture Emergency Board – Tim Manning, USDA/FSA
Emergency Vector Control – Dale Dubberly, AES
NASAAEP Summit Report – Kim Duffiney and Kendra Staffer, USDA
DHS 2013 Funding Request – Joe Kight
SART Certified Training Courses Report – Joe Kight
Large Animal Technical Rescue Capabilities – John Haven, CVM
Tropical Strom Debby and Isaac Report – David Perry
All – Partner reports and updates
Adjourn – 2:00 p.m.

For additional information contact Joe Kight, ESF-17 ECO, FDACS/DAI, 407 South Calhoun St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-0800 [Telephone: (850) 410-0920 E-mail: joe.kight@freshfromflorida.com].


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Registration is Open Now
For 2013 Planning Meeting

The 2013 Florida SART Planning Meeting is scheduled for Monday-Wednesday, January 28-30. There is no event fee for the planning meeting.
Registration is available through the Florida SART website at www.flsart.org/jsp/meetingregistration/. For organizations and/or individuals who must wait, on-site registration will begin at noon on Monday the 28th. A general session will end with closing remarks at noon Wednesday the 30th.

In 2007, Florida FSA State Director Tim Manning (left) introduced then Commissioner of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Charles Bronson to the SART Planning Meeting in St. Petersburg Beach.

The site of the conference is The Shores, 2637 South Atlantic Ave., Daytona Beach Shores, FL 32118 Telephone (386) 767-7350 Fax (386) 760-3651 Toll Free (866) 396-2217 http://www.shoresresort.com/. The room rate for conference attendees is $99/per night. You must register and book your room before December 28 to be eligible for the group rate. Conference attendees are invited to a light fare reception on Monday evening.

For additional information contact Florida ESF-17 ECO Joe Kight, FDACS/DAI, 407 South Calhoun St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-0800 [Telephone: (850) 410-0920 E-mail: joe.kight@freshfromflorida.com].

NOTE: Photos from the Florida SART conferences of 2007 and 2009, and the 2011 planning meeting are available online at http://www.flsart.org/photogallerylist/. Also photos from Operation Red Fly and several SART training events.


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UF "VETS" – Confined Space Training

By John Haven

Over the week of August 22-26, four UF College of Veterinary Medicine VETS technical rescue team members and two firefighters from Gainesville and Alachua County Fire Rescue Service participated in a combined Operations/Technician Level Confined Space Training Program. While the training helps the firefighters typically in dealing with victims in buildings and other man-made structures, the VETS team encounters incidents that meet the definition of "confined space" when dealing, for instance, with some sink holes and commercial horse trailer accidents.

The training was very realistic, requiring "responders" to conduct air quality measurements, conduct high angle access through tight portals on rope several floors down into a building wearing air packs; then assess and "package" the victim, and haul everyone back up to safety. Additionally responders trained to enter through tight horizontal portals - as small as 18 inches in diameter, then locate and package victims in the dark.

Besides putting another tool in the box for the "VETS" team in its ability to respond to technical rescues, it was a great chance to work with members of partner agencies that could be involved in a local response. This great training was provided by Wright Rescue Solutions.

Alachua County Fire Fighters and VETS responders Josh Fleming (left) and David Bates guide rescue dummy, affectionately known as "Randy," through the floor in a rescue glide SKED.

VETS responder Josh Fleming is lowered through an 18-inch hole during Operations/Technician Level Confined Space Training Program conducted by Wright Rescue Solutions.

VETS team member John Haven (right) and Alachua County Fire Fighter David Bates "package" the patient (VETS team member and volunteer Dr. Roger Clemmons) while wearing self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA).

Dr, Roger Clemmons, UF VETS team member, is lowered in stokes basket during Operations/Technician Level Confined Space Training Program conducted in August by Wright Rescue Solutions.

Photos courtesy Wright Rescue Solutions


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Florida SARC Awareness Courses

"There is nothing a dedicated team of volunteers can't accomplish! We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those that volunteer to make the world a better place for people and animals! We hope you will be able to take one of our classes and join the Florida SARC team. We can't do this alone and when disaster strikes, we need you to help us care for animals in need, because we know the entire family matters!"
Consie von Gontard, Director of Training
Florida State Animal Response Coalition
(352) 658-1224

The Florida State Animal Response Coalition is teaching "Small Animal Emergency Sheltering: Awareness Level" to promote effective response for animals during disasters. Registration is required, but there is no fee to attend. Breakfast, snacks and lunch will be provided through a sponsorship by IAMs Pet Foods.

Course Topics include:

Personal Preparedness Overview of Incident Command System
Deployment Preparedness Assisting in Shelter Set Up
Daily Care and Feeding Proper Cage Cleaning and Disinfection
Animal Behavior Stress Management
Zoonotic Disease Personal Safety
and more …

October 6 – Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Brevard County Office of Emergency Management, 1746 Cedar Street, Rockledge, FL 32955

October 13 – Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Cat Depot, 2542 17th Street, Sarasota, FL 34234

For more information or to register online go to http://www.flsarc.org/Training.html or contact Consie Von Gontard training@flsarc.org (352) 658-1224.


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  Caught On Radar



What a difference …!

Seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina's landfall. Emergency crews and residents rescue a dog during Hurricane Isaac on Highway 39 separating Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes on Wednesday, August 29, in Louisiana.


And remembering Hurricane Katrina

  1. Hurricane Katrina was the second strongest hurricane ever recorded in the U.S.
  2. In New Orleans, the levees were designed for category 3 but Katrina was forecasted in Category 4, which went whopping 140 miles an hour.
  3. The storm surge from Katrina was 20-feet (six meters) high.
  4. 705 people are reported as still missing as a result of hurricane Katrina.
  5. Hurricane Katrina affected over 15 million people in different factors such as economy, evacuations, gas prices or drinking water.
  6. The final death toll was at 1,836, primarily from Louisiana (1,577) and Mississippi (238).
  7. An estimated 80% of New Orleans was under water, up to 20 feet deep in places.
  8. Hurricane Katrina caused $75 billion in estimated physical damages, but it is estimated that the total economic impact in Louisiana and Mississippi may exceed $110 billion, earning the title of costliest hurricane ever in US history.
  9. Hurricane Katrina affected about 90,000 square miles.
  10. The region supported approximately one million non-farm jobs, but hundreds of thousands of local residents were left unemployed by the hurricane.
  11. More than 70 countries pledged monetary donations or other assistance. Kuwait made the largest single pledge of $500 million, but Qatar, India, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh made very large donations as well.

Here is a link to a CNN video online that vividly contrasts the Katrina rescue with that of Isaac. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2012/08/29/von-braithwaite-dogs-old-man-rescue.wwl

Writing about the end of the World!
            Alas, Babylon was a 1959 novel by Pat Frank. According to Wikipedia.com it was one of the first apocalyptic novels of the nuclear age – and remains popular, consistently ranking in the Amazon.com Top 20 Science Fiction Short Stories list. Alas, Babylon deals with the effects of nuclear war on the town of Fort Repose, Florida, which is based upon the actual city of Mount Dora.
           The 2012 update on how the world will end is the subject of a new novel by Peter Heller called The Dog Stars (Alfred A. Knopf, NY). The premise is that few people (at least in the U.S.) have survived a virulent strain of influenza which was quickly followed by a mysterious "blood disease." Whole species have died out and the climate is rapidly changing.
           What is interesting is that the world no longer seems – at least from the perspective of novelists and readers – to be endangered by nuclear holocaust, although the 2006 Cormac McCarthy novel The Road destroys the earth by some unspecified cataclysmic means. Today, it is killer virus, the zoonotic disease and a hint of climate change that are the looming dangers. Whether this tells us anything about ourselves, our hopes and dreams (or nightmares) as humans or perhaps only reflects a change in some deeper psychic attitudes is open to interpretation.

Apocalypse or end-of-the-world novels make for fascinating reading. From the lone survivor story to the classic battle between good and evil, these books are thought-provoking and entertaining. The authors' visions of how the world might continue after the human race is nearly wiped out are varied, often frightening and rarely optimistic.

Hantavirus Linked to Human Death in California
           The rare but often fatal Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome has been linked to the death of at least one tourist in Yosemite National Park. The deceased is the first known fatality from contact with the virus inside the park, although others have been stricken and potentially thousands of visitors have been exposed.
           The Centers for Disease Control and California state health officials have found the virus in the feces of deer mice in Yosemite lodgings.
            Hantavirus develops from breathing dust contaminated with rodent droppings, urine or saliva. Early symptoms include fever and muscle aches, chills, headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and coughing. Symptoms can appear as late as six weeks after exposure and there is no specific treatment. About one-third of those who contract it will die.
            "It's a wilderness setting and inspections show that the park concessionaire has done an excellent job keeping [facilities] clean," park spokesman Scott Gediman said. "But there are rodents in the wilderness and some of them are infected and that's what happens. There's no way we're going to eliminate rodents, but we will continue to test and monitor them."
            There have been at least 60 cases in California and 587 nationally since Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome was identified in 1993. Four people have been stricken in California this year. http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/story/2012-08-17/Yosemite-tourist-dies-after-contracting-hantavirus/57114376/1?csp=34travel

UF VETS Sponsor
Oil Spill Workshop
By John Haven
           On August 20 and 21 the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) Disaster Response Team, "VETS," hosted a workshop with other representatives from other universities, state agencies and a representative from the American Veterinary Medical Association. Attending were the UF CVM, Texas A&M, Louisiana State, Mississippi State, Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina State; members of FDACS and their peers from North Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama; plus members of the USDA. The two day session was sponsored by FDACS.
           The workshop was an expansion on previous meetings and discussions by some gulf state colleges as a way to address continuing impacts from the BP oil spill. This time discussions included:

  • how the colleges could share curriculum ideas to better prepare veterinary students to be disaster responders in the "One Health Arena."
  • College curriculum requirements, electives and club level activities existing that engage students in disaster response training.
  • establishing an inventory of response capabilities and mission requirements for each college.
  • how colleges could assist each other during an actual deployment and appropriate mechanisms to request and reimburse for each, including EMAC (Emergency Management Assistance Compact) and Dean-to-Dean agreements.
  • how to leverage subject matter expert and teaching roles to better develop national level awareness, operations, technician and executive management level courses to better contribute to the standardization of training, credentialing and resource typing.

Participants said they found the workshop helpful. The intent is to secure funding for an additional meeting at LSU prior to the next hurricane season.

A NIMS Quick Test
           Which of the following six statements is true? Answer follows the end of the September SART Sentinel.
           As of the federal FY 2005, states, territories, tribes, and local communities are required to adopt NIMS, the National Incident Management System, as their primary emergency management policy. When NIMS is fully implemented, states, local, and tribal jurisdictions will be able to:

    1. Ensure common and proven incident management doctrine, practices, and principles are used to plan for, protect against, respond to, and recover from emergency incidents and preplanned incidents.
    2. Maintain a response operation capable of expanding to meet an escalating situation and the ability to integrate resources and equipment from intrastate and interstate mutual aid agreements, state-provided assistance, and federal government response.
    3. Order and track response assets during common resource typing and definitions, and draw on mutual aid agreements for additional assistance.
    4. Establish staging and allocation plans for the redistribution of equipment, supplies, and aid coming into the area from other localities, states, tribes, or the federal government through mutual aid agreements.
    5. Conduct situational assessments and establish the appropriate ICS organizational structure to effectively manage the incident.
    6. Establish communication processes, procedures, and protocols that will ensure effective interoperable communications among emergency responders, 911 call center, and MACS.

50 of the World's Most Virulent Plagues and Infectious Diseases

           "In the middle of the twentieth century, as science was creating a new optimism, some serious commentators believed that the total eradication of nasty bacteria and viruses could be just a decade or so away. But it wasn't.
           "Our packed cities, linked by ever-faster systems of mass transport, are perfect breeding grounds for disease. Stand in a crowded train and, even if there is reasonably good ventilation, the air will have been in and out of ten or more people's lungs. The chemicals we have generated such as antibiotics and anti-virals, are only around for a matter of months before the germ they are aimed at starts to learn how to duck and dodge. And, as overpopulation and the desire to exploit forests and jungles forces people to live side by side with other species, we provide the perfect environments for enabling germs that have previously only lived in animals to jump into humans."
Dr. Peter Moore
The Little Book of Pandemics
2007, Elwin Street Productions, London
Pages 6-7

Remembering Hurricane Andrew

Hurricane Andrew, August, 1992 Redlands, Florida – 20 miles inland - Photo by John Ehmke

H.A.A.R.T. Foundation & John Ehmke Photography





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About the SART Sentinel

The SART Sentinel is an e-mail newsletter prepared monthly by the members of the Florida State Agricultural Response Team. Past issues of the Sentinel are archived on the Florida SART Web Site www.flsart.org.

If you have a story or photo that you would like to have considered for publication in the SART Sentinel, please contact the editors.

Editor: Rick Sapp, PhD, Technical Writer, under contract with the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, Division of Animal Industry rsa5@cox.net

Associate Editor: Joe Kight, State ESF-17 Coordinator, Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, Division of Animal Industry Joe.Kight@freshfromflorida.com

Answer to "A NIMS Quick Test"
All six of the statements are true. When NIMS is fully implemented, all jurisdictions will work within a common doctrine, with similar operational characteristics, using the same linguistic and communications parameters.

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