Tulsa County Takes Part In Statewide Emergency Drill

It's impossible to pick a day, in advance, to test out emergency operations - when there isn't a chance of something happening. 

Tuesday, with storms on the horizon, the state was checking out emergency communications. Tulsa and every other county took part.

They were working on the basics: how to communicate across agencies to handle several medium sized emergencies - mainly weather related.

Disaster drills can be awfully quiet these days because there's less talking on the radio and less need to run back and forth.

It's all done by email and instant messages now, but those don't always work.

"If you do an exercise and there are no problems, there are no glitches, you really haven't accomplished anything," said Roger Jolliff of Tulsa Emergency Management.

More than a dozen Tulsa County agencies met in the Emergency Operations Center to test out their communication skills.

State authorities in Oklahoma City fed them a list of problems to solve - and will look over their response.

"There have been challenges today from the state trying to send their information to us, and this new computer program we're working with was overloaded in the beginning. They're working through that and we have to adapt to that on our end," Jolliff said.

Tulsa Police - and Fire - and EMSA are the big three responders. But in a drill like this, even the animal shelter is represented because they might be needed.

This is where the people giving orders learn how to deploy their resources.

"This is all happening at the same time so we have to know how many resources we have available to respond, and still respond to real emergencies and this is all happening at the same time," said EMSA Field Operations Supervisor Jason Whitlow.

In the last year, earthquakes have been added to the list of possible Oklahoma disasters, but the more likely prospect is bad weather - especially high wind.

In the coming year - the City of Tulsa is replacing 60 storm sirens with new models that are louder and easier to maintain. It's one more tool that emergency managers will have to keep people safe.

Those new sirens replace models that were put up in 1985. They cost $28,000 each.