County gets bioterrorism response plan ready

Pam Tucker was ready for nearly every conceivable medical emergency.

The one she hadn't planned on came to the forefront with the help of anthrax-laced letters.

"The one area we didn't have a specific plan for was biological-incident response," said Tucker, Columbia County's emergency services director.

After the anthrax scare in Florida, Tucker said, she began to draft a plan to deal with biological medical emergencies. County and state officials attended a meeting Wednesday to discuss the plan and make needed changes.

"This outlines in detail what the responsibilities of various agencies are," Tucker said.

The plan details everything from having televisions in the central control center tuned to local and national news to making sure that all responding to the incident have their own phone number.

Now that a plan is near completion, Tucker said, the next step is to test it. An exercise has been planned with Fort Gordon in September.

"This will give us a chance to get more familiar with the plan and understand how the roles change," Tucker said.

The biggest role change during a biological incident, Tucker said, is that public health officials would be in charge.

Tucker said the likelihood of a biological attack in Columbia or any of the surrounding counties is minimal, but she wants to be ready just in case.

"We don't want to have chaos," Tucker said. "I don't think the dam is going to break, but I have a plan for that."