Niawen

Full Scale Alert

On Monday August 27, 2012, Iakhihsohtha Lodge conducted a full-scale mock evacuation of our facility. This event took over a year to plan. We had meetings about how the event would take place and the many services that needed to be involved in this exercise. We would like to thank Regina Jacobs, Emergency Measures Coordinator, MCA Emergency Measures, Sarah Diabo, Emergency Measures, St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, Daryl Diabo, MCAU, and Mark Terrance, Home Support, MCA, for attending our meetings to give us guidance and for sharing your expertise. We could not have accomplished our mandate without your assistance.

Niawen:kowa to all those who responded to our “call of need”. The response time for our HAVFD and MCAU was amazing. The Department of Technical Services was also on scene to watch our event play out so that they can iron out the kinks in our safety plans. To Regina, Sarah and Daryl for organizing and training the Community Emergency Response Team members. The newly trained Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Volunteers were also on the scene to lend a hand in helping to evacuate the building. Some CERT members, and home support staff played residents, and I must say they deserve an academy award; they put us in situations that we have never experienced. To the observers who came to measure our effectiveness and last but not least, the staff of Iakhihsohtha Lodge who reacted to our mock disaster with speed and skill and still managed to give our residents the TLC they deserve.

One of the major obstacles during our “event” was that the person responsible for head count was unable to determine who was actually in the building because not all the visitors to the lodge were signed in on the visitor’s log. The act of signing in on the log is very important for this very reason, so please, please sign in and out when visiting your loved ones. Our event was a learning experience for all involved, but overall was a successful event. Same time, same place in three years.

Maureen Benedict, Iakhihsohtha