Hale County hosts tornado disaster drill Thursday evening

HALE COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC) - Hale County has been hit by two tornadoes and dealt with some damaging straight-line wind events in 2022. That’s why the County EMA Director wants to be more effective when it comes to responding to weather related emergencies.

Hale County EMA will host a disaster drill September 8 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. More than 500 people will be involved in the drill in some capacity. First responders and EMA personnel from seven surrounding counties will also take part in it.

The scenario involves a tornado touching down in a neighborhood in Greensboro. Hale County EMA Director Russell Weeden says they will test some new triage techniques and do things differently when it comes to setting up an incident command and communicating during a weather emergency when help from outside the county arrives.

“We’ve done everything I can think of as far as active shooter, place crashes, and all that kind of stuff so. Tornadoes are the number one disaster inside Hale County. So, I figured that we start training on something that we see almost every year,” Weeden explained.

They also want to test the surge capacity of Hale County Hospital with this drill. More than 50 patients will be rushed to that hospital in Greensboro to see how well it could handle more than 50 patients being brought there at one time. Weeden adds this will be the 15th county wide disaster drill in Hale County since he’s been in that position.

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