State and county officials, local emergency services, citizens and Lincoln County Healthcare employees collaborated in a heroic effort to contain a wildfire in the woods south of Miles Memorial Hospital Saturday morning, Oct. 2.
The massive evacuation and widespread destruction in the path of the fire probably would have led state newscasts, except, as dozens of radios continually announced, this was a drill.
Most of the action took place in Lincoln Academy classrooms, participants left grateful hospital patients undisturbed and no homes, woods, or local residents were harmed.
Every three years, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security requires local agencies to run a full-scale drill, Tim Pellerin, Director of the Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) said.
Alan Crowell, Communications Officer for Lincoln County Healthcare, said the drills date to 9/11.
Emergency services in New York City “didn’t have one unified command system,” Crowell said, leading to a breakdown in communication. “Port Authority helicopters could see the towers were going to fall while there were firefighters going in,” Crowell said.
The drill began at 8 a.m. with the announcement of a detailed scenario. In the midst of a severe drought and high winds, a report of smoke on Cottage Point Road, immediately south of the Miles Health Care campus, came over the radio.
In the drill’s operation center at Lincoln Academy, Damariscotta Fire Chief Neil Genthner arrived at the scene first.
In front of a projection screen bearing stock footage of brush fires and emergency personnel responding to a scene, as well as a map of the affected area, Genthner radioed updates to Lincoln County Communications.
Genthner confirmed “heavy smoke and fire activity,” then, within minutes, a “fully involved structure fire” spreading into the woods.
Dispatchers at Lincoln County Communications quickly issued a call for mutual aid to fire departments in Bremen, Bristol, Edgecomb, Newcastle, Nobleboro and Wiscasset. Even with help on the way, Genthner quickly wrote off the house and turned his department’s focus to the dire possibilities of the situation.
“The wind’s headed toward Miles at 30 miles per hour,” Genthner said. “I’m going to need air support.”
Dispatch responded with more complications – two residents stranded on Cottage Point, trapped by the fire. Minutes later, an update had the frightened pair wading into the waters of Damariscotta River.
As Genthner and his growing team grappled with the twin challenges of managing an inferno and attempting a dangerous rescue, Sgt. Jason Nein of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office designed a traffic plan.
Holding a hand-drawn map of the area, Nein pointed out the intersections in need of attention to Officer Tyson Fait of the Damariscotta Police Department.
Meanwhile, in the family room near the entrance to Miles Memorial Hospital, the stress in Scott Shott’s bearing appeared authentic.
Shott, Vice President of Marketing, Communications and Development for Lincoln County Healthcare, led a mock evacuation of patients and staff across the Miles Health Care campus, including patients at the hospital as well as residents of Chase Point, Cove’s Edge and Schooner Cove.
Lincoln County Healthcare employees hovered around a dry erase board in the family room near the hospital entrance. Many held radios and clipboards or notebooks, but all activity centered around the board, which contained a census of the patients, residents and employees in each facility.
In addition to the census, the board addressed the mobility of each facility’s population by category – ambulatory or requiring a wheelchair or ambulance. The census allowed hospital officials to allocate ambulances to each facility as necessary in order to transport evacuees to a triage area at St. Patrick’s Church in Newcastle.
As hospital employees bustled in and out of the room, Pellerin burst in from Lincoln Academy with an update. Pellerin called the fire at Cottage Point an “extremely large wildfire” and assured those present that emergency crews were “attempting to evacuate as far as they can in front of this fire.”
During the briefing, an update announcing the complete evacuation of Cove’s Edge came in. Minutes later, the same voice on the radio returned with a disappointing announcement. “That was an error,” she said. “I have patients.”
At 9:31 a.m., 43 minutes after starting the evacuation, the announcement frustrated Lisa McIlwain, Vice President of Human Resources and Logistics Chief for the evacuation, who shook her head in disapproval.
Three minutes later, two more encouraging communications followed in rapid succession as Chase Point and Schooner Cove reported successful evacuations.
Over at Cove’s Edge, patients were ready for transport but not necessarily willing. “We have one person who is being very difficult,” a voice on the radio said. “You may have trouble getting her into a vehicle.”
Outside, ambulances pulled up and first responders escorted several “patients” – all volunteer actors – through a garden and into a part of the building serving, for the drill’s purposes, as St. Patrick’s Church, the triage area.
Several of the patients, sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease, displayed varying degrees of symptoms and accompanying challenges for emergency workers.
“I want to go back to my room. I can’t find my room,” a female patient said, turning around and walking in the opposite direction. The first responder gently guided her back in the right direction.
As the patients passed, Alan Crowell, wearing a bright vest emblazoned with the words “Public Information Officer,” spoke about the benefits of the drill.
Evacuations operate under the guidance of HICS, or the Hospital Incident Command System, Crowell said. The system “takes everyone out of their normal jobs and makes them part of a big team,” he said.
Shortly after 10 a.m., hospital officials gathered in a boardroom to discuss the drill. Despite minor inconveniences – Shott, for example, decided to find another headquarters to replace the tiny family room – everyone reported general satisfaction.
“It went really well,” said Cindy Leavitt, Senior Vice President of Hospital Operations. “We certainly followed our policies and procedures for evacuation.”
Leavitt credited employees of all departments for completing “their checklists” and lending to the effective execution of the drill. “We enjoy participating in the drills,” Leavitt said. “This was a good one.”
“The best way to learn is through experience, not through reading a book,” Shott said.
Miles Health Care, with the help of the Central Lincoln County Ambulance Service, Waldoboro Emergency Medical Services and the Wiscasset Ambulance Service, evacuated a total of 206 patients in 56 minutes, Deputy EMA Director Kim Kaiser said.
Back at Lincoln Academy, in a science classroom, Genthner, with fellow firefighters and several rangers from the Maine Forest Service, had finally managed to stem the spread of the fire. The fire, at one point, spread across Bristol Road, but that part of the fire had been extinguished.
Fortunately, Damariscotta Harbormaster Paul Bryant rescued the two residents stranded on Cottage Point, Genthner said. “We were fortunate that it was high tide,” Genthner said. “We were able to get right into the cove.”
Although the fire, at its height, had encompassed “a couple hundred acres,” District Ranger Matt Gomes expected crews to contain it readily. “I think the weather is going to give us a hand here shortly,” Gomes, who works in the Forest Service’s Jefferson office, said.
Local firefighters faced an additional challenge without air support, Gomes said. Due to stated drought conditions, “There was a lot of other fire activity across the state,” Gomes said.
“In a real-life situation,” Gomes said, “we would prioritize” use of the helicopters, stationed in Augusta and Old Town. Each of the helicopters can carry a Bambi Bucket with 220-260 gallons of water. The threat to the Miles campus, in this case, would establish the fire as a high priority.
“I’ve been to several of these [drills] over the years,” Gomes said. “This is one of the better ones I’ve seen.”
Pellerin, in a brief interview after everyone gathered for lunch, agreed. “I think, for us, the objective of the drill was accomplished,” he said.
Homeland Security requires three types of drills – tabletop, functional and full-scale, like Saturday’s, Pellerin explained.
Tabletop drills, as indicated by their name, only take place on paper, while functional drills involve more personnel, but no equipment – like the ambulances and the Lincoln County Communications mobile command trailer in use Saturday.
“It takes about a year to put [a full-scale drill] together,” Pellerin said.
