LEBANON — Thursday was a good news, bad news day for Linn County Public Health Director Frank Moore during a role-playing exercise.

The good news was that Moore was named governor. The bad news was that a possible outbreak of a deadly virus affecting children and young adults was detected overseas and was headed for North America.

Moore was one of nearly 40 people from throughout Oregon who took part in a three-day emergency management program taught by staff from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Fort Noble, Ala. The program culminated with a role-playing exercise in which participants used the information they had learned to work through a pandemic and get real-time feedback from the instructors.

It was held at the Health Career and Training Center at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital.

Several other area professionals participated, including Ann Steeves, regional coordinator for health care emergency preparedness at Samaritan Health Services, whose role was county commissioner; Jennifer Nitson, public information officer at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, whose role was school superintendent; and Jim Howell, Linn County Emergency Management director, whose duties remained the same.

Participants were divided into four key groups representing a small city, a large city, a county and a state.

“The timing for this couldn’t be better,” Moore said. “We’re coordinating H1N1 flu shot clinics throughout the county right now. I’ve at least tripled my knowledge about how to handle this type of situation. I know I’ll sleep better at night, not worrying about what comes next.”

Moore said the experience helped him “more clearly define my role and the role of others I’ll be working with” and added that the FEMA staff brought “cutting edge information to the table.”

While Moore’s team was dissecting information gathered from the World Health Organization, Nitson and her crew were determining how many school buses were available as resources.

“We are figuring out how many students receive free or reduced-priced lunches and we may use the school buses to deliver food to their homes,” Nitson said. “We’re also making plans for distance learning options.”

FEMA trainer Dr. Laima Warnecke asked Nitson if she had determined when schools would close. Warnecke said she helps with three or four of the training sessions monthly at Fort Noble.

The answer wasn’t when there were several students sick, it was when enough staff members were sick the school couldn’t operate efficiently.

“The kids have already been exposed,” Warnecke advised. If you have one child infected and they are in a room with 20 other kids, all are exposed. It doesn’t mean they will get sick, but the exposure is done.”

Steeves, commissioner of the fictional county of Woodland, said her emergency management director, Howell, was her point man. A key phrase used several times throughout the exercises was “Now what?” as role players worked their way through a set series of actions that need to be taken as new, updated information comes in.

Actions include when to give notice to health officials, when to send press releases, determining community partners and how to handle briefings so that key players have the same and most current information concerning disease parameters, inventories of antibacterials and vaccines and disease movement  to be used in decision making.