Emergency Preparedness

This site is designed to keep families informed of public health emergency preparation activities in Benzie and Leelanau Counties.  The goals of this site are:

• assure that there is timely identification and response to public health emergencies
• assure that a competent public health, health care, and emergency response workforce exists in our region
• assure that health department policies will support an effective and coordinated response to an emergency.
• assure that State, Local and community partnerships are mobilized to promptly identify problems, to coordinate a response to emergencies and assure adequate health care for affected individuals.

We work closely with the Local Emergency Management Coordinators, the Region 7 Healthcare Coalition, and other emergency response agencies to ensure a coordinated and effective response to any emergency.

Family Preparedness

 For information on developing a family emergency preparedness plan or a ready go kit, go to www.ready.gov. 

Emergency Alerting

Signup here to receive emergency notifications through CodeRED if you live or work in Benzie County.  

Training and Exercising

The Health Department is especially concerned with protecting people's health and well-being in a communicable disease outbreak, food-borne illness, or other disease that can be widespread.  In doing so, the Health Department establish point-of-dispensing (POD) sites to dispense medications and/or vaccines to people.  As a way to help prepare staff, the following scenario is a training tool used to educate and provide staff with the authorities and references used in a outbreak and the process of dispensing medications at a POD site: 

Training Scenario 

Each year, public health staff participates in various trainings and exercises with local emergency management partners and other healthcare providers to enhance the coordination and understanding of plans and procedures amongst one another.  This includes a mass casualty exercise as a result of a tornado incident in Leelanau County, and exercising the delivery of medications to healthcare partners in reaching their client populations in a public health emergency. 

Contact

Sue Sparkman, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator

ssparkman@bldhd.org