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BANGOR – Thomas Fitzpatrick, then deputy commissioner of the New York Fire Department, arrived at the World Trade Center’s twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, just as the second plane hit.
He told more than 250 people gathered Tuesday for a pandemic flu planning summit that what he most wished he had then was the information the rest of world was hearing and watching on the news.
The importance of a working relationship with the media cannot be underestimated in a crisis, he said.
“Public information has to be considered a tool of emergency preparedness,” Fitzpatrick said. “Public information will not only keep sick people out of harm’s way, but it will help people worry well.
“Mike Brown [former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency] may have learned more about Katrina by staying in Washington and watching television than he did on the ground in New Orleans,” Fitzpatrick said.
For more than six hours, Fitzpatrick and others shared the lessons learned from the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, Hurricane Katrina, Maine’s ice storm of 1998 and other disasters to help people plan for the probability of a flu pandemic. On hand were representatives of dozens of towns, water districts, the Red Cross, hospitals and funeral homes, and television, radio and print reporters.
The summit, “Media and Community: Planning Together to Confront Crisis,” was sponsored by a dozen entities, including the Bangor Daily News, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, the Maine Association of Broadcasters, the Maine Emergency Management Agency, the Maine Public Broadcasting Network and the American Red Cross.
With a menu of up to 40 federal agencies and dozens of state bureaus, Fitzpatrick asked: “Who would you call if you had a 15-minute warning before the next tsunami?”
He answered: “The media. They are our partners in crisis.
“When we are prepared for the expected,” Fitzpatrick said, “then we are much better prepared for the unexpected.”
Some attending the conference came away feeling good about planning already accomplished. “I think we are way ahead of the game,” said Robert Higgins, Somerset County Emergency Management director.
Others, however, were struck by the scope of the crisis that a pandemic would cause.
“Wow,” said Jeff Nichols, public information officer for Mount Desert Hospital. “This is an eye-opener. This is reality.”
Part of the summit included an explanation by Dr. Dora Mills, director of the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of pandemic flu and, in particular, the H5N1 strain of avian flu now circling the globe.
Avian flu is a disease spread through domestic birds and wildfowl and, in 227 cases, from birds to humans. Although there are 144 different combinations of avian flu, it is the H5N1 subtype that is of most concern because scientists fear the virus will mutate and spread from human to human. H5N1 first appeared in Hong Kong in 1997 and now is in more than 35 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa.
Mills explained that the H5N1 is a “genetic engine,” and people who have the disease are contagious before they even know they have it.
Pandemic flu is a global outbreak where there is little natural immunity and the disease can spread easily from person to person. No pandemic flu is present now in the world, Mills said, although H5N1 is actively spreading throughout the fowl populations of Asia, Europe and Great Britain, and an outbreak cluster among 15 people in Indonesia is being investigated.
“This type of planning is a very daunting process,” Mills said. “This isn’t your everyday disaster planning. There are a lot of what-ifs. However, no one ever died of preparedness.”
Concerns at the planning summit ranged from eating chicken and eggs to how to provide employees with food and shelter if a quarantine is in effect.
“For me, this is scary but quite basic,” Thomas Todd, Newport Water District superintendent, said during a break. “If half of my employees are out with the flu, how do I provide services?”
Richard Lewis, regional vice president for Clear Channel Radio, who led his company through Hurricane Katrina, urged people to put aside “turf battles” and to work together in a crisis.
“When you get in the foxhole, you’re all on the same side,” he said. “I used to think events like this were an exercise. I didn’t know my life depended on it.
“Today’s summit is one of the greatest things I’ve seen,” Lewis said. “This is the starting point. You can never walk away now and say you didn’t know. Now it is your responsibility.”
He said that any business, community or state plan rests on the people involved.
“The people you have on staff are 90 percent of your effectiveness,” he said, “not your plan. Your plan needs to include a way to pay your workers, how to feed and shelter them, and, if needed, how to care for their families, their pets.”
Mills offered some simple advice for participants. “Wash your hands. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. Stay home if you are sick.
“Four thousand people died in Maine in 1918 of the Spanish flu, but three-quarters of a million lived. We know we can survive this,” Mills stated. “It is just a matter of being prepared.”
Pandemic flu information
www.maineflu.gov
www.pandemicflu.gov
www.maine.gov/mema/prepare
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