Pointing to a CERT team member, Tim Williams of Gloucester Emergency Management noted that volunteers and full time employees alike were working together. Everyone involved in public community welfare is represented, he said.

According to Jane Wenner, Gloucester Emergency Management Coordinator, the exercise built on strong coordination that already exists across the Three Rivers District. Multi agency advisory committees meet regularly, and quarterly gatherings bring together Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck agencies along with state partners and Dominion Energy. At those meetings, agencies share their challenges, solutions, and the points of contact they’ve used, she said.

“We have always had a strong working relationship with Three Rivers, and exercises such as this continue to strengthen that relationship. It also allows for collaboration between the different departments and develops an understanding of the capacity at which each can assist in a time of need,” said Richmond County EMS Chief Mitch Paulette.

During the pandemic, VDH regularly conducted drive thru vaccine clinics, most held at smaller sites such as the Richmond County Emergency Services headquarters or local health departments.

Last week’s exercise aimed to reacclimate staff to POD operations while testing them under different conditions.

“What we wanted to do was to pilot this somewhere that we haven’t done it before, in an area that’s more spread out, to see what that looks like,” said Rivenbark. With 10 health departments, Three Rivers spans more jurisdictions than any other health district in the state. In a real event, there would likely need to be at least one POD on each peninsula. For that reason, Friday’s exercise was held at RCC’s Warsaw Campus and the Glenns Campus.

RCC was an ideal partner because it has comparable facilities on both sides of the river, each larger than the sites typically used during the pandemic. In many cases, PODs would still likely operate from smaller county buildings. But if there was something like a nuclear event requiring iodine distribution that’s something people may only be able to get from VDH and they would be running to get, and it could require something on the scale used last week.

“We need to be prepared for anything, big and small,” said Rivenbark.

“The joint POD exercise was the first time we have trained on such a large scale with VDH,” said Paulette.

“Being such a large health district, Richmond County has always offered regional support for anything the health department needs to stage, be it equipment or PPE, and continues to maintain our MOU’s to allow for quick deployment of needed supplies to the Northern Neck. Efforts on a scale as large as this will be a coordinated effort with VDH and all other involved entities that could then evolve into smaller independent PODs as the need arises, but still with coordination through a single point of contact.”