Exercise coordinator Charles Braxton, seated left, organizes the operations while Tyrus Guiliford, emergency preparedness IT, oversees technical aspects of the drill.

Are you ready to react to news of an approaching hurricane? The Georgia Emergency Management Agency's (GEMA) 2012 Hurrex simulated event is a method public health leaders hope will provide some answers to that question.

Over the course of a week, organizers set up the drill to help participants realize what should and should not be done during such an event. In this case, Tropical Storm Jerry was forecast to come ashore as a Category 3 hurricane in coastal Georgia. On Tuesday morning, the simulated situation involved a State of Emergency declaration for 11 counties projected to be hit hard by the advancing storm.

"[The exercise] provides an opportunity for different people within public health to get together and have a face-to-face that helps strengthen communications," said exercise coordinator Charles Braxton.

Braxton took on the role of an incident commander during the exercise. Using WebEOC and other technology, specialists from throughout GEMA and public health were able to react to the approaching hurricane while working out of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and at other sites. Participants monitored the storm and anticipated the needs of a wide range of people who would be impacted if it were a real event. They then took action as the simulation played out.

Shift changes brought more people into the Hurrex event, which also allowed for experience in the transitions that happen when on-going and ever-changing situations such as this occur. The Georgia hurricane season officially begins June 1.

Braxton says that examining what went wrong during the drill provides valuable insight.  

"[The mistakes] give you an opportunity to look at those things and correct them so that in a real-world event, then those problems will already be taken care of," said Braxton. "And hopefully, the training gives people an opportunity who have never sat in the EOC a general idea what happens here and a better sense of what to expect."

-Story by Eric Jens, DPH Communications