Ventura County tests emergency response at a campus

During a recent simulation, a teenager with a severed arm lay unconscious among the other injured people scattered on a lawn at California State University Channel Islands on a Friday afternoon.

A few feet away sat the wreckage of a school bus, still smoking from a bomb left on board.

The simulation was part of Operation Sunrise, the second annual training exercise held by Ventura County Public Health (VCPH) to test its policies and equipment in response to a largescale disaster.

For 36 hours, beginning the morning of July 25 and ending the following Saturday evening, a university courtyard became a disaster-readiness training ground and education camp for hundreds of VCPH medical staff and emergency support volunteers from around the county.

Law enforcement, firefighters, doctors and nurses—considered first responders in emergencies— train constantly for such events. Operation Sunrise provides an opportunity for medical and mental health experts and citizens groups, such as Medical Reserve Corps, Community Emergency Response Team and Disaster Assistance Response Team, to practice a coordinated response to a catastrophic event in Ventura County.

"Communication and coordination are key to this whole thing," said Steve Carroll, incident commander and deputy administrator for the county's emergency medical services.

Dan Wall, a public health nurse who coordinated the disaster exercise, said the two-day event is important because it brings together groups that don't necessarily know each other but work together in an emergency.

"It's all about the networking, and it's all about . . . the knowledge," he said. "If you can get them together, you gain."

Wall said more than 600 people participated in the 36-hour event, which included training seminars throughout both days on topics such as psychological first aid, building search and shelter management.

Public health held a similar drill in 2007. Wall said they learned from last year's 24-hour exercise that more time was needed to allow more community volunteers to attend, so the event this year was extended to 36 hours.

Wall said early estimates put the cost of Operation Sunrise, paid for by Homeland Security grants, between $15,000 and $20,000. He said he's heard of a similar event in another county costing about $250,000. While Ventura County used in-house experts in putting on Operation Sunrise, other counties usually hire consultants, he added.

Mike Powers, director of the county's healthcare agency, said it would be easy to have a disaster drill on a smaller scale and without the same level of authenticity. "But that would mean letting our guard down," he said.

Officials with the state's public health emergency services department, the U.S. Surgeon General's office, the Air National Guard and medical staff from Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley Hospital and other area hospitals also attended Operation Sunrise.