Health, Safety Conference in Texas Promotes Regional Planning

Aug. 03--A Permian Basin Health and Safety Conference held Saturday focused on lessons learned during last year's West fertilizer storage site explosion.

About 85 doctors, nurses, first-responders and emergency planners attended the inaugural conference, which was sponsored by the Texas JRAC and Texas EMS Trauma & Acute Care Foundation, at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel.

"Because of our location and dealing with the boom, something like that could happen here," said Connie Thompson, executive director of the Texas JRAC regional trauma system serving 17 West Texas counties. "Are we prepared?"

During one of the sessions, Department of Public Safety Assistant Director Nim Kidd asked participants about the last "disaster" in the Permian Basin: the 2011 wildfires.

"They call it the law of averages for a reason," he said. "It's going to catch up."

Kidd outlined local and state emergency response frameworks, which need to include both the public and private sectors.

"They are a part of everything we do. The quicker we get the private sector up and going, the faster we return to normal," Kidd said.

In addition to developing plans for "spontaneous volunteers and donations," he said emergency planners and responders also need to know each other's strengths and weaknesses.

"We don't want to meet each other for the first time on the side of the road," Kidd said.

Additional conference sessions focused on chemical burns, traumatic injuries and trauma perspectives from the explosion in West, a rural community with a volunteer fire department about 18 miles north of Waco.

An April 2013 explosion at the fertilizer storage site killed 14 people, including a dozen firefighters who were trying to put out a blaze, said Christine Reeves, executive director of the Heart of Texas RAC trauma system.

"We didn't plan for the loss of first responders," Reeves said. "When they weren't there, we started from scratch, because they were it."

After giving her account of what happened that night, Reeves asked participants to drill regularly -- including a wide variety of scenarios -- plan regionally with a focus on coordination and communication and foster relationships on state and federal levels.

"With an event like this, although the community came together and is rebuilding, there is still a chasm," she said. "It's not as close-knit as it was prior to the incident."

During the last session, DPS Trooper Sean Baxter outlined the reasons for fatal wrecks in the Permian Basin, including distracted driving, not wearing a seatbelt, attitude and driving while intoxicated.

Even if drivers make all the right choices on the road, he said there's still a 50-50 chance of being involved in a crash. Baxter has seen people on cellphones, eating and heating up food, changing clothes, putting on makeup and even shaving.

"People treat a car like a toy -- it's a tool," he said, asking participants how they want to be remembered. "I don't want to be remembered as a cross on the highway. Life is about choices -- only we can chose how we drive vehicles."

Copyright 2014 - Midland Reporter-Telegram, Texas