An Eight-County Preparedness meeting was held Tuesday evening at the Southwestern District Health Unit in Dickinson to plan long-term for a multitude of issues from flooding to flu.
Comprised of eight counties, with representation from emergency managers, health professionals, and others, Dr. Amy Oksa, a pediatrician at Medcenter One Dickinson Clinic and a health officer for SWDHU, said she is seeing more streptococcus cases than she "can ever remember."
"Last week I alone was averaging about five positives per day ... and I've already seen a couple each day this week so that's kind of odd because that's usually more of a spring and fall sort of peak," Oksa said.
Adams said while there are not many confirmed flu cases at this time, it will probably change over the next few months.
Stark County had six confirmed flu cases, including types A and B, as of Jan. 26, according to the North Dakota Department of Health website.
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Candace Kessel, infection preventionist for St. Joseph's Hospital and Health Center in Dickinson, said flu cases are "trickling in real slow."
"We may have three, four a day, but that seems to be about it," Kessel said.
Stark County has a medical cache available in the region just in case area hospitals become overwhelmed and patients cannot be transferred out.
"We have the capability of putting up 10 to 20 beds as like a makeshift hospital and we would do that at Dickinson State University and then call in medical personnel to help staff that during a disaster," Adams said. "Hopefully we won't need that but we do have it here and it is ready to go if we need it."
Adams said a lot of flood planning is taking place.
"The projection now is that two-thirds of state may see moderate to high flooding," Adams said. "I don't think even though we're in the western third that isn't projected to have a lot of flooding, we still may have some flooding."
Adams said eastern flooding could affect this area such as taking on a surge of people that may have to be evacuated.
"It could be very much an interesting spring," Adams said.
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Brent Pringle, former Stark County Emergency Manager, took a job elsewhere and until he is replaced, Gary Kostelecky is serving as interim emergency manager, Adams said.
With terror and nuclear threats, another situation that Adams said officials should be thinking and planning for is a massive electrical outage, whether part of a country or an entire country.
"It sounds more like science fiction when you talk about it but it's something that could be a credible threat and that we're getting information as to that we probably should be thinking about planning for this kind of a scenario," Adams said. "One of the things they're asking us to start thinking about more seriously is for planning for a longer disruption for a power type outage or a scenario."
On the forefront is questions of what alternates to electrical heat would be available.
General disaster planning includes the idea of people being self-sufficient for up to 72 hours, but in such frigid temperatures that can be quite a while, Adams said.
With many individuals utilizing electrical heat sources, Adams encouraged officials to begin thinking about alternative heat sources.
Ruby Perhus, a nurse for SWDHU in Dunn County, said her concern is with people living in campers who depend on electricity for warmth.
"We still have quite a few of them in our area," Perhus said.
