Sheriff`s Corner

Hi everyone and welcome to the Sheriff's Corner. I'd like to give you the results of the Federally graded exercise we participated in last week.

For those of you who haven't heard about this exercise I'll give you a very quick rundown of what we're trying to do. As you know, Progress Energy is located in Citrus County. Because they are a nuclear power plant, they constantly get a lot of attention. In our efforts to stay up to date and to be prepared, we have joined with Citrus County, Progress Energy and other agencies to learn about, then practice and finally be graded on our ability to meet our responsibilities to you our citizens. If Progress Energy experiences a problem, we are immediately notified and we know what to do. We train with Progress Energy, the State of Florida, the Health Department, FEMA and Citrus County Sheriff's Office.

This year was a "graded exercise" year. We responded to a scenario that made it look like something terrible happened at the Utility Plant. In this case, a tornado. As we did our jobs, FEMA and other evaluators watched our every move and they talked about all of the good and or bad things that happened. This information came from three days of testing. The first day graded our ability to set up a shelter and administer necessary services to those needing shelter. There was also a potassium iodide phase and a wash down phase that happened at Lebanon Station. The exercise at Lebanon Station is very large. The Red Cross, our agency as well as all of our fire departments, CERT and Voice teams attend. FEMA was astounded at the participation and we received much praise. The last day involves our EOC and Mark Johnson's team, the Utility Plant and Citrus County and deals with the actual mock event.

The results this time? We preformed exceptionally well and each and every phase was congratulated by FEMA and the Utility. My thanks to everyone. Levy County can proud. Our plans are to integrate domestic terrorism into these exercises in the near future. Thank you and take care.