The March 11th earthquake and tsunami reminds us of the importance of preparedness. That applies to families, agencies and institutions like hospitals.
The earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11th reminds us all of the potential for disaster when it comes to natural phenomenon.
As with hurricanes, tsunamis may give us some time to prepare.
"When it comes to tsunamis, it's a form of disaster that we do prepare for,” said Ed Howard of Castle Medical Center’s security department.
Howard says when it comes to a natural disaster, planning is everything.
"We get designated people involved in the hospital. Each has specific jobs in overseeing that our emergency operations plan gets - goes to the right course it should be,” said Howard.
The hospital utilizes what's called an incident command center. It's a vital part of what has been done leading up to crisis planning.
"We began looking at everything from security measures to insuring that we had the proper amount of equipment and supplies. We even looked at things like emergency power, activating our generators, doing all of those things to prepare for when the incident hit us,” said Howard.
During the March 11th tsunami scare, a number of people went to local hospitals seeking shelter. Howard emphasizes Castle is not equipped to be a shelter.
"So we did have to kind of screen the traffic coming in and out of our facility and ensuring that we had the room and the resources for the medical services that we needed to provide,” said Howard.
If windward residents need shelters, Howard says there will be more than enough to take care of those in need. "Quite honestly, we have a very good shelter program that's run by civil defense and we have shelters that are designated in immediate areas that people can go to when they don't have medical problems."
