On March 11, 2010, as part of the San Mateo County Health System’s “Silver Dragon IV” emergency drill, Foster City, Belmont-San Carlos and Cal-Fire Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) will go door‑to-door in Foster City delivering earthquake preparedness information from 9 AM until noon.  CERT teams will canvass Neighborhoods 1 and 2 and Metro Center areas.

The exercise is the fourth annual test of the ability of the Health System to work with local cities, law enforcement, fire departments, Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) and CERT teams to distribute large quantities of medicine and medical supplies from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Strategic National Stockpile (SNS).  This year 20 agencies in San Mateo County will participate.

CERT and MRC volunteers from throughout the county will practice their readiness to provide emergency assistance, specifically in the event of a major health emergency such as Pandemic Influenza, a food or water-borne illness, or an intentional release of a bio agent.  In order to test door-to-door distribution as realistically as possible, teams will distribute earthquake preparedness brochures to simulate the medicine that could be delivered following a health-related emergency involving large segments of the population.

The San Mateo County Health System has organized similar exercises annually since 2007.  For Silver Dragon I, the fixed target was to hit 1,300 households with time as the variable.  For subsequent exercises, the time has been fixed at 3 hours and the variable has been the number of households reached in that time frame.

In addition to testing the Health System’s ability to distribute medications, this exercise will test San Mateo County’s existing plans to receive SNS medicine and medical supplies as quickly as possible. The SNS will be deployed in the event of a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out. Once Federal and local authorities agree that the SNS is needed, medicines can be delivered to any state in the U.S. within 12 hours. While waiting for the SNS shipment to arrive, San Mateo County is prepared to distribute medicine and supplies from its own pharmaceutical stockpile.

Additional Information

Strategic National Stockpile (SNS)   www.bt.cdc.gov/stockpile/index.asp

Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT)

San Mateo County’s Community Alert System, (SMC Alert)  www.smcalert.info