Should bioterrorism strike, emergency response officials say Douglas County is now better prepared to deal with the calamity.

“A year ago, we had nothing,” said Kim Ens, disease control expert for the Douglas County Health Department. “Sept. 11 made everybody a lot more aware. But we didn’t have a plan. If something would have happened here, we would have been pretty much lost. Now, we have a basic plan that we’ll be changing and working on making more specific as time goes on.”

A training exercise regimen and extensive federal funding have made the difference, Ens said.

Ens’ assessment here jibes with the findings of a yearlong study released last week outlining local public health departments’ preparations for potential bioterrorism attacks.

The National Association of Counties and the National Association of County and City Health Officials coordinated the nationwide study.

The latest survey, conducted in December, reported 84 percent of counties believed they were better informed than ever about the risks of bioterrorism.

That’s in stark contrast with the 90 percent that said they were not prepared for any sort of biological disaster last January.

After receiving $111,000 in federal assistance from the Centers for Disease Control last January, a Douglas County task force was organized to address the potential for biological disasters.

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical Capt. Mark Elliott, left, gets some help into a Level A suit from firefighter Silva Beach. The suits are designed to protect firefighters responding to bioterrorist attacks. The equipment is part of Station No. 4's hazardous materials outfit.

“Managing a bioterrorism incident is different than any other type,” said Paula Phillips, Douglas County Emergency Management Director. “It’s a very different type of response, and planning for it is real interesting.”

Interesting, Phillips says, because local health departments are a new player on the disaster-response team that, until recently, consisted of police, fire and EMS departments, along with emergency management and public works personnel. Before, health officials were essentially in the dark.

“Public health has always been prepared to manage major disease outbreaks like flu or chicken pox, so they have that component in place,” Phillips said.

What was missing, Phillips said, was the health department’s understanding of who leads a coordinated response during a biological attack, what information other disaster management agencies would need and how best to disseminate that information.

“When you think of where we came from, there was a lot of room for improvement,” said Charlotte Marthaler, director of policy and planning for the health department. “Working on the task force has helped us build those types of relationships and have a better understanding of what each entity is doing in order to help us be in a position to respond better.”

Numerous bioterrorism exercises, like the tabletop drill conducted in Lawrence on Nov. 1, also have helped officials’ readiness, Marthaler said.

¢Douglas County Health Department¢Centers for Disease Control and Prevention¢Kansas Health Alert Network

“There was a lot to learn,” she said. “The whole purpose was not to grade us and say that we passed or failed. It was to help us identify the next areas that we need to work on.”

Only a small number of health department workers were mobilized during the exercise, Marthaler said. In the case of an actual alert, the response would be much greater.

“If we ever had a bioterrorism incident, our entire health department — all 42 of us — would be involved in some way, shape or form,” she said.

And so would federal agencies like the CDC, which handles the national pharmaceuticals stockpile — a reserve of medication, antibiotics, some vaccines and other essential materials that officials say would be available within 12 to 24 hours to local health departments in the event of an attack.

“If something happened now, I feel confident we would be ready,” Ens said. “This is all a learning experience, but people are starting to understand their roles now.”