The Lafayette County Health Department, Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County and Lafayette County Emergency Management recently hosted a tabletop exercise that brought together several agencies from throughout Lafayette County to work on being better prepared for an emergency situation in the county.
    On Wednesday, April 30 a total of 24 individuals representing a number of different organizations and facilities within the county—including Public Health, Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County, Emergency Management, Lafayette County Dispatch, EMS, law enforcement, coroner, funeral home directors, Lafayette County Highway Department, Human Services, public information officers and county government, came together to participate in an exercise that presented a potential emergency situation in Lafayette County.
    The objective of the exercise was to bring as many participating agencies into the exercise in order to share information, facilitate team work and develop a plan on how to deal with the emergency situation, which in this case was presented as a catastrophic winter ice storm with severe ice accumulation, heavy snowfall and an arctic cold front.
    During the exercise, representatives explained what each of their agencies could offer in the situation and worked together on how to best deal with the situation.
    According to Lee Gill from the Lafayette County Health Department, there were several new disciplines present during the exercise, which really enhanced the depth and scope of the preparedness discussion and planning.    
    This exercise took place in communities throughout the southern region of Wisconsin from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on April 30.