Company's Coming
 Harold Sokolove - PVNN
| | This year a total of 56 emergency workers will be on call around the clock to ensure an emergency response time of no more than 5 minutes. | 
| | Director of Proteccion Civil Y Bomberos, Claudio Estrada, is the man responsible for creating and implementing the emergency response plan for the Municipality of Bahia de Banderas. | 
| | There will be ambulances, pickup trucks, fire trucks, boats, 4-wheelers and even a back hoe available to respond to emergency situations. |
It's always good to be prepared when you know company is coming to visit. Claudio Estrada has been getting ready for company for weeks now. A lot of company.
He is the Director of Proteccion Civil Y Bomberos. That is, he is the man responsible for creating and implementing the emergency response plan for the Municipality of Bahia de Banderas.
He is preparing for the crush of visitors to the Puerto Vallarta area for the Semana Santa holiday period, which for him and his crews means being prepared for more than the usual number of emergencies from April 7th through April 24th.
Estrada and his men are responsible for handling emergency medical and fire calls in the north Banderas Bay area bounded by Banderas Bay, Lo de Marcos to the north, the Ameca River to the south and Agua Milpa to the east, an area of 775 square kms.
Estrada is spending many hours leading up to the holiday period familiarizing government officials and other agencies that his men will be depending upon with his 11-page response plan.
Operativo Semana Santa 2006, is Estrada's training manual for the participants in his emergency preparedness meetings. It is very detailed, listing goals and objectives, identification of problems likely to be encountered, emergency programs already in place, area of coverage, participating agencies, communications, where to take medical cases, equipment to be used, equipment positioning and lastly, personnel and equipment available from various agencies.
According to the manual, some of the incidents emergency workers will have to be prepared to encounter include: auto accidents, fires, boating accidents, "fool heartiness," drownings, hazardous materials, extrications, illness, falls, and Africanized Honeybees.
To summarize the plan, there will be ambulances, pickup trucks, fire trucks, boats, 4-wheelers and even a back hoe available to respond to emergency situations.
Estrada's goal is to have an emergency response time of no more than 5 minutes. To accomplish this, he said he will have some vehicles "in rotation" and some stationery throughout the coverage area in the major population centers. He also will have additional emergency vehicles at his disposal, some from as far away as Tepic, the Nayarit state capital.
Estrada said, "I want to keep ambulances available for actual emergencies, not responding to non-emergency situations."
To do this, he said, "I will have several pickup trucks on the road constantly, carrying first aid supplies, being first responders and notifying ambulances if they are needed on the scene."
His cadre of emergency workers has also been expanded for the holiday period. This year, for the first time, he will have 56 emergency workers to call upon to get the job done: 21 members of Bahia de Banderas civil protection and fire fighters, 20 volunteers and 15 civil protection and fire fighters supplied by the state.
The cooperating agencies and personnel in this massive effort to serve and protect the public include Federal, State and Municipal police, Civil Protection, Bahia de Banderas officials and agencies, State officials, the Cruz Roja, private ambulance services, Green Angels, IMSS, Puerto Vallarta Port Captain, Tourism officials and a number of others. |
Vallarta Weddings
News from Around Banderas Bay | April 2006 
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us