Full Notification

Today, Saturday 04-21-2012, first responders and community volunteers will be exercising a community wide disaster drill in the West Point and Wilseyville area of Calaveras County from about 9:00am to noon. The scenario involves a simulated vehicle accident that cascades into a neighborhood evacuation and opening of an emergency evacuation shelter. Blizzard Mine Road in Wilseyville will be reduced to one lane during the exercise with no other road closures expected. Although no actual evacuations are taking place, personnel will be going door to door in one of the surrounding neighborhoods informing residents of the exercise and passing out instructional flyers with information on what would happen if an actual evacuation order had occurred. A Red Cross shelter is planned to be set-up and opened at the West point Community Hall as a part of this exercise so please use caution driving on Highway 26 in the area with roadside parking near that center for the event.

This exercise is planned for multi-agency response and use of trained Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteers' assistance. For the past year, these volunteers have undergone Incident Command System, Red Cross and CERT Team certification training along with partnering with the local Fire Department to help foster cooperation between first responders and community volunteers. The focus of this exercise is community integration into disaster planning while exercising portions of the Calaveras County Emergency Operations Plan.

Agencies involved in today's exercise include the Sheriff's Office of Emergency Services, West Point Fire Department, Mokelumne Hill Fire Department, Central Calaveras Fire & Rescue, CalFIRE, CHP, California Emergency Management Agency (CalEMA), the American Red Cross, Amador County Disaster Action Teams of the American Red Cross, South County Large Animal Rescue, PG&E, CalWORKS, American Legion Ambulance, Calaveras Amateur Radio Society, Campora Propane, and especially the Blue Mountain Emergency Preparedness Committee and CERT Team.