Times Observer photo by Stacey Gross A multi-agency tabletop emergency preparedness exercise was held Wednesday at the Warren Manor in Pleasant Township. Pictured, in no particular order, are: Susanna Hummel, Phil DeFabio, Scott Rose, Brad Wilcox, Todd Honhart, Kathleen Courson, Paul Cain, Diane Clifford, John Tipton, Cindy Walters, Barbara Toner.

What would happen to the 200 or so residents of the Warren Manor in the event of an emergency?

After Tuesday’s tornado warnings, said Administrator Susanna Hummel, the Pleasant Township nursing home had a pretty good idea of how it would handle the safety of its residents, which Hummel said is “our top priority.”

But it’s never a bad idea to have some extra practice. That’s why, she said, staff from area nursing homes, Hospice of Warren County, Warren General Hospital, Warren General Home Health, Darling’s Home Health, the Transit Authority of Warren County, and the Warren County Department of Public Safety, among others, were gathering at the manor on Wednesday to participate in a tabletop emergency preparedness activity.

The activity is one component of the state’s Department of Health regulations regarding facility policy and procedure when it comes to preparedness for emergency situations. But even without the clarification, which came down from the state last November in terms of compliance regulations, “our number one job is to keep the residents of our community safe,” Hummel said. That’s why the manor – most skilled nursing facilities, actually – take part in regular training and exercises to make sure that each member of the staff knows just what to do if the worst should happen.

The particular tabletop exercise, Hummel said, had been developed by Warren County Deputy Director of Public Safety Scott Rose and presented a hypothetical winter storm warning to staff from various local care facilities, testing not just their ability to solve problems in a novel situation, but their ability to work together and pool resources to ensure that everyone under their total umbrella of care was kept safe during the “emergency” at hand.

The manor participates in one tabletop drill a year, said Hummel, but they also take part in various other training exercises and practices throughout the year to ensure that policy and protocol are clear in everyone’s mind, and to be certain that both staff and residents of the facility are safe in the event of an emergency, regardless of what type of emergency it may be.

The training activity was scheduled to run from 1 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, said Hummel, “depending on how it all plays out.”

She was confident, she said, that all of the agencies would work well together in both a hypothetical and a real-world emergency. The proof of that, she said, came during last October’s boil water advisory situation. Facilities with water reached out to other facilities in need, said Hummel, and through a network of rapport and support established over many years, Hummel said, everyone worked to make sure residents throughout the county were safe and provided for.

That’s why, Hummel said, exercises like this are more than just thinking ahead for potential emergencies. They’re also about maintaining relationships that allow the various care facilities and agencies throughout the county to continue working together whenever a need arises.