Mount Pleasant Magazine July/August 2018

66 www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com | www.BestofMP.com feature O n June 4, the Lowcountry was rattled by a 5.5-magnitude earthquake. Many people were injured and some died. Buildings collapsed and the bridges that normally take motorists across the Ashley, Cooper and Wando Rivers and the Intracoastal Waterway were damaged and had to be shut down, at least until they could be thoroughly inspected. On June 6, an aftershock brought more misery to the tri-county area. With transportation in and out of Mount Pleasant severely limited and East Cooper Medical Center bursting at the seams with patients who had checked in just two days earlier, the situation could only be described as dire. The injured were arriving on foot and in emergency and personal vehicles, but the only way out for those who required care elsewhere was by helicopter. At Mount Pleasant’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC), a large room on the first floor of Town Hall, more than 30 employees representing most of the municipality’s departments labored to make decisions and take action that would save lives, assess the damage and return the town to some sort of normalcy. None of this actually happened. It was all a drill for Mount Pleasant and other government entities preparing for what they would do if the Lowcountry were thrashed by a natural disaster such as an earthquake or a hurricane. Participants, all of them in communication with Mount Pleasant, included Charleston, Isle of Palms, North Charleston, Sullivan’s Island and Charleston and Dorchester counties. If the emergency had been real, the EOC would have remained open for weeks or even months, staffed 24/7, with town employees working 12-hour shifts. “In this case, it would have been months,” said Amanda Knight, Mount Pleasant’s emergency manager since last September. “The EOC would stay in operation until we recovered from the incident.” Knight explained that in an emergency, activities would By Brian Sherman Preparing for the Worst Getting Ready for Future Emergencies Photo by Thomas Runion. Photo by Thomas Runion. East Cooper Medical Center Emergency Room Tech Amy Hatfield tends to patients during the drill at ECMC.