It’s Time to Talk About Air Quality

How to prepare for the local impact of distant weather incidents

June 29, 2023

So perhaps you are one of the few facilities in the northeast that had wildfires elevated on your hazard vulnerability analysis (HVA) prior to this year. Nature-induced air quality issues are not a common area in many risk analyses in Pennsylvania. Prior to these latest Canadian wildfires, the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, impacted air quality issues in that area and may have spurred you to make a just-in-time review of your HVA and see if you have appropriate measures in place.

Many of us may have enhanced our HVAC and filtration systems through the COVID-19 pandemic, although it may have focused more on filtering air that is pulled from a patient’s room. Now we are evaluating the quality of air that is pulled into our buildings. We have trained our staff on air exchange rates for optimal care of COVID-19 cases. Perhaps we have put some of the annual trainings on the shelf during the pandemic, such as staff awareness of functional shutoffs, including air intakes.

Events such as these point to a few issues for emergency mangers to consider:

• Do we take events such as these and readdress our HVA prior to the next annual review?
• Do we perform a tabletop drill to evaluate our preparedness?
• Do we engage our engineering professionals to identify what we have in place and what can be improved?

Each facility may approach these issues differently, but one thing we can be sure of is that a systemic review of natural and industrial events falls under our purview. Our ability to coordinate an analysis of impact, preparedness, and response can afford our facility with an appropriate plan before the next disaster arrives.

For awareness and insight into incidents of interest to emergency managers, consider joining us on our HAP Emergency Management Weekly Briefings. Prior presentations can be found at our website.

For more information, contact Ryan Weaver, MBA, BSN, RN, CPPS, manager, emergency management.