Public information officers from all over Chatham County, including the Coastal Health District, participated in the full-scale Joint Information Center exercise which focused on the scenario of a chemical spill in close proximity to a school.

It was a normal, quiet Tuesday morning on Savannah's Westside. Children were busy learning important lessons in school and parents began settling into their work routines. But all that changed when a bank robber, holding a hostage and speeding away from the scene of his crime, ran head on into a tanker truck carrying hydrochloric acid.

The truck overturned, resulting in spillage of the clear, poisonous liquid. Emergency and media crews quickly arrived on the scene. Nearby neighbors started posting panicked messages on Facebook and Twitter. School officials looked for guidance on what to do with a building full of students and staff. And in an instant that ordinary Tuesday turned into mass chaos.

That was the scenario during a full-scale, multi-agency Joint Information Center (JIC) exercise recently initiated by Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA). Public information officers (PIO) began receiving notification of the incident around 7 a.m. and quickly reported to the JIC in downtown Savannah. Close to 20 PIOs from various agencies, including the Coastal Health District, Savannah-Chatham Public School System, Savannah Fire Department, U.S. Coast Guard and the Chatham County Sheriff's Department, participated in the exercise along with CEMA staff and volunteers.

"Disasters and emergencies often happen with little or no notice and we wanted to present as realistic a scenario as possible," said Jennifer Rodriguez, CEMA emergency management coordinator. "This exercise helped PIOs from different agencies work together to produce messaging about the crisis that was clear, consistent, timely and accurate."

JICs are the single point of coordination for all public information operations during emergencies. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) requires all public information provided by response organizations during incident management operations be communicated through operating JICs.

"The Chatham County Public Information Officer Association meets regularly to discuss different aspects of emergency management communications but this was a unique opportunity for some of us to really test our knowledge of how and why a JIC operates," said Kelly Harley, CEMA emergency management specialist and public information officer. "The coordination of information during an emergency is vital to ensure that key stakeholders know what's going on and what they need to do to stay safe."

During the exercise, PIOs updated social media sites, responded to multiple media inquiries, issued news releases and dispelled rumors and misinformation. Although this exercise called for the organization of a physical JIC, PIOs also set up virtual JICs on a regular basis. A virtual JIC may simply consist of using phones or the Internet. The bottom line for any JIC, said Harley, is communication.

-Story by Sally Silbermann, Coastal Health District 9-1