Disaster planners readying Minnesota for pandemic flu

(AP) - Kris Eide was on the front line of the Red River flood that traumatized the Grand Forks area in 1997, battling a deluge that flooded thousands of homes and displaced more than 50,000 people.

Now she's in charge of preparing Minnesota for a catastrophe that could be bigger: pandemic flu.

Estimates suggest an aggressive strain could kill 30,000 people, force even more to huddle in their homes and bring the state to a standstill. The state's pandemic preparations began back in 1999, but the work never ends, Eide said.

"Pandemic is bigger than anyone can imagine," said Eide, Gov. Tim Pawlenty's chief adviser on disasters.

Eide said she and other state officials have spent hundreds of hours on logistics: things like dispensing huge quantities of medicine, closing schools smoothly, handling lab specimens and ensuring proper communications.

Part of their job is making people realize that a pandemic would be different than more commonplace disasters like floods, tornadoes, and drought, where a state looks to the federal government for help. The state will have to help itself, they said.

"When a pandemic comes, there is no help," said Dr. John Hick, a Minneapolis emergency room doctor involved in pandemic planning. "You're stuck with what you have."

Their assessment of Minnesota's readiness is grave.

In a severe pandemic, Minnesota would face shortages of health care workers, ventilators, antiviral drugs, face masks, hospital beds and other medical supplies. Family members would have to care for each other. Doctors would have to make life-or-death decisions about which patients got access to equipment, drugs and medical care.

When a pandemic comes, there is no help. You're stuck with what you have.

Aggie Leitheiser, who heads emergency preparedness for the state Health Department, has been working to make physicians aware of tough choices ahead.

"Who benefits the most? Who's the most likely to survive?" she said. "How do we use whatever tools we have to expand that number?"

State officials are at least $5 million short of the roughly $8 million order they have placed with the federal government for Tamiflu. Lawmakers pared back Pawlenty's budget request this year; Eide said to expect another request next year. In the meantime, the state will buy what Tamiflu it can as soon as the federal government releases it.

Drills have exposed some vulnerabilities, too.

In May, health workers in 13 northwestern Minnesota counties tested how swiftly they could hand out medicine. Their exercise involved passing out candies to more than 1,000 people, with help from law enforcement, hospitals and even a casino.

Carol Sele, an emergency preparedness coordinator in the region, said the effort was slowed by communication problems, including some difficulty making computer networks talk with each other. Organizers realized they should've had computer support people on hand.

"We have all these wonderful technological pieces available to us, but we find out that we are really pretty inept at trying to work this stuff," she said.

Next spring, a $500,000 public education campaign will try to prod average Minnesotans into preparing their households for a pandemic or other mass emergency.

State officials also have to change their mentality, Eide said. That's what happened to her when she served as state incident manager for the 1997 flood. She started thinking of herself as a first responder, not an administrator.

"We were working 24 hours a day, seven days a week," she said. "It was just an epiphany of we're all in this together."

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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