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Thursday, September 22, 2011

A Day of Disaster: The Environmental Health Impact of the April 2011 Tornadoes in Alabama

The severe weather outbreak that occurred on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 moved across the state of Alabama in two devastating waves and tested the environmental health response capabilities of the Alabama Department of Public Health.  The first wave made its way across the northern portions of central Alabama in the early morning hours and produced widespread damage from straight line winds and a few isolated tornadoes.  The second wave involved numerous super-cell thunderstorms that spawned long lived, strong to violent tornadoes across the northern two-thirds of the state.  The damage brought about by this weather system and its estimated 62 tornadoes was widespread and catastrophic in a large portion of the state and caused the death of 247 Alabamians.

From the earliest power outages through the weeks of debris clean-up, environmental health specialists were on the front lines of response, mitigation, and recovery.  This monumental event had far reaching impact on environmental health from the issuing of boil water notices; devising alternative means of sewage disposal; water filtration for community use; rapid assessments of food establishments; and the removal and proper disposal of solid waste.

Environmental health staff from across the state responded to the affected areas and were put in situations very different from what they had experienced before.  Those who were members of strike teams” and completed the CDC’s Environmental Health Training for Emergency Response course were better equipped to react to the unusual environmental health circumstances caused by the devastating storms.  Preparedness training in environmental health is essential for local staff so that citizens can be protected from potential environmental health hazards and inspections can be made to prevent further disease outbreak by successful interventions from environmental health staff. 
Posted by NEHA at 8:10 AM
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 22, 2011 at 5:06 PM

    I've taken the EHTER training (CA version), and would like to see the training in action in response to an actual disaster. Looking forward to the presentation.

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