OPERATION HOME DELIVERY: NORFOLK HEALTH DEPARTMENT STAGES MAJOR EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS EXERCISE - US Fed News Service, Including US State News

NORFOLK, Va., April 21 -- The city of Norfolk issued the following press release:

On Thursday, April 22, 2010, the Norfolk Department of Public Health, in partnership with the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority will stage, Operation Home Delivery, a major emergency preparedness exercise that will involve some 1,200 residents of the city's Diggs Town, Calvert Square and Grandy Village communities.

This special drill will commence precisely at 10 a.m. and will draw to a close at Noon. It is designed to test and improve upon Norfolk's readiness to respond to all public health emergencies, in this instance, a bioterrorism event.

Following a fictitious act of terrorism, the Norfolk Department of Public Health will implement an exercise that includes health department staff, 60 Norfolk residents from the targeted communities, and a host of volunteers and emergency response personnel. The goal is to expeditiously make door to door deliveries of emergency kits to homes in the 'red zone:' Diggs Town, Calvert Square and Grandy Village. The kits include: an Operation Home Delivery brochure; a broad sheet describing particulars of the exercise, as well as the fictitious event; a survey; and simulated medication.

This exercise is to test multi-agency capacity to achieve the Norfolk Cities Readiness Initiative mandate, e.g., mass prophylaxis of 100% of the population in 48 hours. Employing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 'Incident Command System' model, Operation Home Delivery will engage more than 100 participants from diverse agencies as part of the exercise.

In addition to Public Health and NRHA and its community resource officers, others participating in the exercise include: the Police Department, Medical Reserve Corps, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), Community Services Board, Emergency Operations Center (EOC), Fire Rescue, Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.

For further information on Operation Home Delivery, call the Norfolk Department of Public Health at 757-683-2756.

For more information please contact: Sarabjit Jagirdar, Email:- htsyndication@hindustantimes.com.