PREPARED — Rick Stead, Jefferson County Public Health Emergency Preparedness coordinator, held a copy of the county’s 2019 emergency response plan in his Steubenville office. — Christopher Dacanay
STEUBENVILLE — When disaster strikes, it’s best to have a plan.
Preparedness and effective response are priorities of the Ohio Department of Health, which administers the federal Public Health Emergency Preparedness grant program. Funded through the Centers for Disease Control, the program helps health departments strengthen their response to public health threats.
“PHEP works with local partners to support the readiness of Ohio’s regions and local health departments as well as responding to public health emergencies,” the ODH website states. “PHEP includes a full range of prevention, mitigation and recovery activities, not just those designed to enable responses to events.”
The Jefferson County General Health District’s PHEP funds support multiple initiatives, including medical countermeasure dispensing, emergency operations coordination and volunteer management.
Rick Stead acts as the JCGHD’s PHEP coordinator, ensuring emergency plans are up-to-date and executed properly in collaboration with other local entities.
“People need to understand that Jefferson County is in a very good position — whether it’s the Jefferson County EMA, first responders, the health department — to respond to any type of emergency that would happen in the community,” Stead said. “I think people should feel confident they have people out here that are trained, exercising their plans, they’re knowledgeable, that have the skills and abilities to get the job done in case of an emergency.”
A lifelong Weirton resident, Stead is a 1987 Weir High School graduate, with degrees from West Virginia University and Marshall University. He served as a Weirton police officer for 25 years, retiring in 2019 as a captain. He credits that job for conferring the public engagement and logistics handling skills he relies on as the PHEP coordinator.
The PHEP program itself is deliverable based, said Stead, who entered his position five years ago. Every year, he applies through the state for its preparedness grant and receives a checklist of around a dozen deliverables — updating plans, submitting epidemiological reports or participating in discussion-based training, for example — to be executed and approved by the state, before funds are allocated monthly.
Those funds pay for Stead’s position and any public health emergency supplies, such as tents or cots. The health department keeps those supplies close at hand, including a 14-foot trailer loaded with generators and other nonperishable items.
Essentially, PHEP’s purpose is to ensure local health departments can meet the needs of their communities during emergencies, Stead said. When situations rise to an emergent level, the health commissioner may activate response plans, which Stead oversees to ensure proper implementation.
The JCGHD has a central emergency response plan that contains 14 annexes, or supplemental sections focusing on certain operational functions. Those annexes outline the pre-designated response to a variety of situations: non-pharmaceutical intervention, communications and information sharing and training exercises, to name a few.
Following a real-world response, Stead and JCGHD staff may suggest changes to the plan based on lessons learned, and the ODH may also suggest additions.
“If the plan needs tweaked or fixed, then it’s my responsibility to bring that to the health commissioner’s attention and then we’ll make additions and/or corrections to the existing plan. It’s basically a living document that, as we go and we have lessons learned, you update your plan, your policy procedures to move forward, always trying to stay ahead of what’s going on.”
The JCGHD’s existing plan was approved in 2019, though an update is being organized for 2025 with significant additions — most of which evolved out of COVID-19 pandemic response takeaways, Stead said.
Stead began with the health department at the pandemic’s onset, meaning his work focused on COVID-19 response for about two years. That required establishing points of dispensing for vaccines, both open PODs for the public in places like the Fort Steuben Mall and closed PODs for specific groups like clients of the Jefferson County Board of Developmental Disabilities. PODs may also be used for distributing non-medical countermeasures, such as protective equipment.
A highlight from Stead’s PHEP work is the JCGHD’s response to a meningitis outbreak that occurred between late 2023 and early 2024 in a Bergholz-area Amish community. Stead helped coordinate clinics with nursing staff, who administered preventative care to contain the outbreak.
The JCGHD may not be the lead entity for certain situations, Stead said, but it has protocols outlining ways to assist. For example, emergencies like the East Palestine rail disaster might fall outside the health department’s immediate response capabilities, he added, though staff can contribute in the aftermath through testing and other actions.
“There’s a lot of moving parts, but some of it overlaps,” Stead said. “There are a lot of instances where we would not be the lead agency, but we would be in a support role. You’ve just got to be prepared to do whatever you can do to assist other agencies in the event of emergencies.”
The JCGHD’s emergency preparedness partnerships extend beyond times of crisis. Stead and Health Commissioner Andrew Henry co-facilitate a local health care coalition, which meets quarterly at the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency office.
“We work with the health care coalition and different community partners and stakeholders,” Stead said. “We are always working together. We’ve just developed a relationship with SVRTA, Jefferson Behavioral (Health System). You’re always working with people to have those connections when an emergency presents itself, so you can get in contact and get the problem resolved.”
A particularly integral relationship is with the Jefferson County EMA, Stead said. The EMA and JCGHD share open lines of communication and turn to each other for assistance. Also, if the JCGHD is unable to locally source medical countermeasures — products like vaccines and medicines — then a request is made through the EMA to the state, which can provide those products from its stockpile.
Stead himself participates in monthly regional planning meetings for the ODH. Jefferson County is part of the ODH’s Southeast Region, which includes Harrison, Belmont, Coshocton, Muskingum, Morgan, Perry, Washington, Noble, Guernsey and Monroe counties.
Meetings typically take place in Noble County and can incorporate tabletop exercises, Stead said. A recent exercise focused on chemical leaks, and although decontamination avenues were found sufficient for humans, the group recognized a decontamination deficiency for farm animals — critical in the largely rural area of Southeastern Ohio.
In response, officials decided to host two classes to inform the public about hazard preparedness for animals and planning for agricultural, animal and food-related disasters.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency-certified courses are tuition-free and eight hours each. They will take place Aug. 5 and 6 in Steubenville at the Jefferson County Tower building.
As far as improvements,Stead said Henry and he would like to see more service outreach to rural parts of the county, not just during emergencies. The JCGHD has taken steps toward this goal by hosting influenza vaccination clinics around the county, aided by its Wellness on Wheels mobile clinic.
Assembling a list of on-call volunteers can be difficult, Stead said. The ODH has encouraged a more structured approach to volunteer management, leading the JCGHD to begin developing a medical reserve corps and volunteer management system.
Stead spoke positively of the agencies and knowledgeable professionals at work in the community, including resource officers in schools and volunteer fire departments trained at the same level as career fire departments. There’s also a collaborative spirit uniting counties in the region, which are ready to share resources.
“It gives you a degree of confidence — the fact that everybody is coming together, exchanging information, and there are open lines of communication for people in cases of emergency response,” he said. “I think we’re well set up to respond to any kind of emergency.”
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