First Selectman Mike Tetreau announced today that the Town of Fairfield’s Emergency Management Team recently conducted a full scale emergency preparedness exercise at the Jennings Beach parking lot. The exercise was a “Drive-Thru Point of Dispensing” (POD), in which the Center for Disease Control (CDC) provided antibiotic training bottles that were dispensed as if there had been an anthrax exposure involving a large number of people. With participation from the Fairfield Police, Fire, Public Works and Recreation Departments, the Health Department staff, along with volunteers from the Fairfield Easton Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) and the Fairfield Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), set up and then operated the POD.

First Selectman Tetreau said, “This exercise was another opportunity for the Town of Fairfield and our Health Department to practice emergency preparedness procedures to be better prepared to serve and protect the residents of Fairfield.”

The primary goal of the exercise was to train to and practice mass dispensing procedures in order to be better prepared in the event of a real life emergency. Those driving through the exercise and assisting in other roles included staff from area health departments such as Greenwich, Stamford, Darien, Norwalk, Westport, Weston, Bridgeport, Stratford, Milford and Meriden, as well as the Connecticut Department of Public Health, MRC and CERT members from Fairfield and neighboring communities.

For more pictures of the event please go to the Fairfield Health Department’s Facebook page.

For more information, please contact Fairfield's Health Educator Santina Galbo, MS, CHES, at 203-256-3150 or sgalbo@fairfieldct.org.

MRC Volunteer Rosemary Craig reviews form and based upon the participant’s responses directs them to the appropriate lane of four dispensing lanes.	Fairfield Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Richard Felner, Fairfield Health Department Director Sands Cleary and First Selectman Tetreau discuss operations with MRC volunteer Dr. Patrice Foudy, DMD (wearing cap) and Fairfield Health Department Nursing Coordinator Sue Epstein.	First Selectman Michael Tetreau thanks (from left to right) MRC member Suzanne Brown, RN, as well as Joanna Lipson from the Greenwich Health Department, MRC member Sara Jannot, PA, Fairfield Health Department RN Mary Ellen Dragecevich and Fairfield Health Department Health Educator Santina Galbo.