HC ready for POD drill next week; Roads Department has eyes on flooding

Henry County department directors discussed the upcoming point of distribution drill in preparation if there were to be a pandemic in the region and road conditions as flood warnings persist during a Board of Supervisors meeting on Thursday, May 2.

Henry County Emergency Management director Walt Jackson said they are ready for the point of distribution (POD) drill and are hopeful that everything will go well. The drill will be on Tuesday, May 7, in the afternoon.

Representatives from emergency management departments, county public health departments, fire departments, senior care facilities and hospitals from Henry, Des Moines, Louisa, Van Buren, Lee, Jefferson and Wapello counties will participate. Henry County will receive mock medication at the Mt. Pleasant Correctional Facility. Other counties will send representatives to retrieve their share of the medication to distribute throughout their county.

This is a closed drill and Henry County Public Health plans to work with the hospital, prison and care facilities and nursing homes to practice how they would distribute medication in the event of an emergency.

This is just a drill. Henry County is working with the Iowa Department of Public Health on a strategy for the region in case of a pandemic.

In other news, Henry County Engineer Jake Hotchkiss said they are watching the roads for flooding. As of Thursday at 9 a.m., only one road was temporarily closed because of a broken culvert, and the Roads Department was keeping a close eye on Oakland Mills.

'There was water over the road in several places on Tuesday (April 30). It looks like the river is starting to go down. It spiked a little bit this morning because of the rain last night,” Hotchkiss said.

Henry and Louisa County Road will be closed temporarily until the Roads Department can put some material in to buy time until the new pipe is delivered. It is a joint project with Louisa County, which will be funding half the project.

Hotchkiss also said that despite heavy rainfall, gravel roads are starting to firm up; however, there are bad spots after semis hauling hogs drove over roads.

'We wanted rain, we needed rain, now we've got more than we want,” Hotchkiss said.

Last week, the Roads Department was out working on dust control, spot rocked, replaced a field entrance on Iowa Avenue, worked on a crossroad pipe on Benton Avenue and worked on several erosion issues with riprap.

They also started work on Iowa Avenue bridge east of Old 218, poured pile encasements on the bridge; replaced an entrance on 265th Street; and hauled resurfacing rock to 255th Street and Logan Avenue.