Be prepared

The point of disaster drills is to make sure emergency services are prepared to deal with the aftermath of a real disaster. It's difficult to imagine the results of a devastating earthquake, but a recent test of emergency preparedness in Cape Girardeau County came about as close to a realistic scenario as possible.

In the drill, the New Madrid Fault had let loose the kind of earthquake that shook Southeast Missouri in the early 1800s so hard that church bells rang in Philadelphia. The scenario assumed that land-line telephones were down, that some emergency vehicles escaped destruction and that many bridges and overpasses on area highways were destroyed, making the task or assessing the damage and helping those in need all the more difficult.

One weakness was discovered during the drill. The antenna for the county's emergency radio communications system allowed operators to get information from Jefferson City and other communities, but it did not broadcast messages from Cape Girardeau County. Instead, the drill team had to rely on satellite phones, which worked. The county intends to find out what went wrong with the radio antenna.

This is what drills are for: to see what works and what doesn't.

One assumption that future drills might want to take into account is whether the county's emergency center would survive a big earthquake and, if not, where disaster relief might be set up.

The good news? A great deal of preparation is in place for dealing with disasters in our area, and the individuals who are responsible for making -- and carrying out -- these plans are to be commended for their foresight.