Many issues related to weather can impact your health. Wildfires spawned by lightning can cause respiratory illnesses from smoke and poor air quality. Flash flooding has led to numerous rescues from vehicles and homes. Last year, extreme heat sent at least 2,414 people to Arizona emergency rooms and contributed to 522 deaths. There are many [...]
During a disaster, local, state, and federal governments can declare a state of emergency to free up emergency funding and waive certain regulatory requirements that can impede rapid response. The steps for issuing such a declaration are often complicated by differing laws at the various levels of government. Additionally, it is not always clear how [...]
Our state has experienced some powerful storms over the past month with the most recent hitting the Greater Phoenix Area last night. After the storm passes, the threat to public health can continue. Fortunately, there are simple actions you can take to prevent the spread of these health risks, including mosquito-borne disease, flood water runoff [...]
We’re partnering with the AZ Division of Emergency Management to conduct the biggest preparedness exercise ever to be held in Arizona. It’s called the 2011 Arizona ”Vigilant Guard” Exercise. It’ll involve around 5,000 folks from various backgrounds including emergency management, public health, health care, law enforcement, fire, military, and the private sector. The exercise will be [...]
Our preparedness team organized and executed a Functional Exercise on Tuesday last week to test Arizona’s hospital system for Interoperable Communications, Tracking of Bed Availability, Deploying Volunteer Health Professionals, Fatality Management, and Medical Evacuation/Shelter-In-Place capabilities. The exercise focused on hospital, local health, and state health Emergency Operations Center coordination. The exercise scenario was called Sink [...]
Our preparedness team organized and executed a Functional Exercise on Tuesday last week to test Arizona’s hospital system for Interoperable Communications, Tracking of Bed Availability, Deploying Volunteer Health Professionals, Fatality Management, and Medical Evacuation/Shelter-In-Place capabilities. The exercise focused on hospital, local health, and state health Emergency Operations Center coordination. The exercise scenario was called Sink [...]
