How Did We Do? Madison County hosts “Mid-Action” Review of COVID-19 Response By Samantha Field, Public Information Officer
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indsight is 20/20. That is why after every incident it is recommended that an After Action Report is created. It is an exercise for jurisdictions to look at what they did right, what went wrong, and how they can improve for the next time. Even though we are still in the process of response and recovery when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, Emergency Management Director, Dan Degear, believed that a “Mid-Action” review would benefit Madison County and help us improve in the event of a second wave. On August 28, 2020, members of Madison County’s incident response team from the Office of Emergency Management, Public Health Department, Board of Supervisors, County Administrator, Public Information Officer, Finance, Purchasing, Personnel, IT, and Facilities Departments all came together in a socially distanced setting with an outside moderator. Dale Currier, former Oswego County Director of Emergency Management, met with the Madison County’s incident response team to evaluate and document the past six months. Everyone came with an open mind and with a unique perspective of how the events leading up to the closure of the county, the response to COVID-19, and the reopening of the county transpired. “This is what Madison County has prepared for, why we do trainings with the Office of Emergency Management, why the Public Health Department holds exercises and has plans for pandemics,” said Madison County Administrator Mark Scimone. “The challenges of COVID-19 were the uncertainty of how wide-spread the virus was, the constant changing guidance, and the duration of the response. With the help of Dale Currier we were able to critically look at what we did, what we didn’t do, and what we still have to prepare for.” At the end of the exercise it was refreshing to know that we all agreed that Madison County’s response so far has been a good one. From day one we recognized the need to keep our employees, the public, and our stakeholders all informed as
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NYSAC News | Fall 2020
the latest information became available. Madison County began having meetings with schools and hospitals in February about COVID-19. With the assistance of County Information Technology, the Madison County Public Information Officer Samantha Field opened the county’s first-ever Joint-Information Center (JIC) to ensure an open line of communication and consistent messaging was kept throughout the event. One takeaway from the review is the importance of a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP). Going into this event, Madison County had a COOP but it was limited in its applicability to an event of this magnitude. While not an ideal time to do so, County OEM staff and departments spent the early days in March building an annex to the COOP for the pandemic conditions we anticipated were coming. This annex addressed what services and employees may not be essential for two weeks may become essential after that and our plans to make that work? The “Mid-Action” review addressed questions of what needed immediate review, what does our plan look like the first 2 weeks, 30 days, 60 days and so on; and what needs to change? Another big takeaway was the need to address staff burnout, which became a serious problem about several months into our response. Madison County is working on a plan to make ensure everyone has a bench and the ability to unplug for 24 hours. In order to have a bench we need to evaluate the strengths of our workforce – does someone else have skills to be the PIO, can anyone else run a testing site, does someone have the skills to assist with contact tracing? These were invaluable insights gained from both our experience during the pandemic and from the review process; we now recognize that our county needs to deepen our bench by training more employees in the Incident Command System (ICS). To better prepare our workforce for a potential second wave, Madison County has already stepped-up training of ICS100 all management positions and has plans to begin training all senior management staff with ICS-200. As Public Health Director Eric Faisst said in a press release on March 5, 2020, "We are prepared to react and respond." Now more than ever that is true in Madison County.