VA’s Office of Emergency Management responds to urgent situation

The call came in the evening of Dec. 12 from Maryland VA notifying VA’s Office of Emergency Management of an urgent situation involving a cracked steam pipeline at the Perry Point VA.

Emergency managers immediately collaborated on how to mitigate any potential impacts to patients requiring acute care.

With the medical center mostly powered by steam, technicians would need to shut off heat and hot water in the facility to repair the cracked pipeline, raising concerns about sustained conditions for vulnerable patients in critical care units.     

As OEM’s available contingency resources were at the ready, the decision to support inpatient Veterans at the medical center with disaster logistics management capabilities was immediate.

“This is our mission.”

“We had the capacity, capability and authority to respond with our emergency management resources,” said OEM Executive Director Derrick K.S. Jaastad. “This is our mission.”

Within hours, more than a dozen OEM logistics specialists rallied to initiate loading and staging operations involving heavy generators, totes filled with equipment weighing up to 800 pounds and flooring pallets.

Logistics support vehicles, heavy-duty vehicles pulling 38-foot trailers and over-the-road tractors pulling 53-foot trailers were equipped, ready and enroute from Martinsburg, West Virginia, to Perry Point, Maryland.

The logistics team was greeted by Kelley W. Anthony, assistant director at Maryland VA and about 20 volunteer staff who she referred to as the “Person Power Pool Team.”

“It was like magic. They responded so quickly, eager to help and had exactly what we needed to sustain care for our patients if conditions worsened,” Anthony shared.

Anthony further explained that shutting off the heat and hot water would potentially mean evacuating critical care patients from the medical center if the repairs could not be completed quickly. The reality of evacuating patients was only minutes away from happening before steam pressure was stabilized and the pipeline repaired, restoring heat and hot water in the medical center.

As part of OEM’s critical capability, wrap-around services—such as fuel and water—and isolation units were on-hand, providing the medical center about 100 beds, generators, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

Isolation units are large tents established outside and capable of providing 25 beds per module and up to 425 beds with all 18 modules fully assembled. They are flexibly used as highly durable portable isolation units, immunizations clinics, or even medical surge units, depending on the situation.

Units ready in hours

The isolation units alone normally take several days to establish and require a full crew to construct. On this day, however, with a determined logistics team and medical center volunteers, they were established within hours and ready for the potential of patient evacuations.

James Phillips, OEM associate director for logistics, described the logistical operations as an “intensive amount of work.” “Our resources were ready to receive patients if it had come to that. They were long and exhausting days, but we were willing to do whatever it took to care for these Veterans,” he said.

Once the steam pipeline was repaired and heat and hot water restored in the medical facility, tear down and reload operations of the insolation units began. OEM and medical facility staff once again worked together to dismantle the structures.

OEM remained onsite as a contingency. After two days, the logistics team returned to Martinsburg, leaving one established isolation unit at the medical facility as a precautionary measure.

“We now have a stronger partnership with OEM,” Anthony said. “We’ll leverage that relationship to train our medical facility staff to establish the isolation units on a more regular basis as part of emergency preparedness. We’re so thankful for the support we received from OEM.”

About the Office of Emergency Management

VA’s Office of Emergency Management, based in Martinsburg, West Virginia, is VA’s primary emergency operations capability for Veteran’s health care. Its mission is to lead VA’s risk-based emergency management program that supports continuity of health care for Veterans, beneficiaries, first responders, members of the armed forces and the public during disasters and other national emergencies.

With more than 100 assigned personnel, OEM provides strategically specialized emergency management expertise and support to Veteran Integrated Support Networks and 1,380 health care facilities.

OEM also supports VA’s “Fourth Mission” to improve the nation’s preparedness for response to war, terrorism, national emergencies and natural disasters by developing plans and taking actions to ensure continued service to Veterans.

Additional information on OEM.