Lewis County Emergency Management received this shipment of various supplies in early April.
While the supply chain for personal protective gear remains overwhelmed in the state of Washington, Lewis County citizens have stepped up to cushion the blow of COVID-19.
County Manager Erik Martin confirmed in a meeting with the Board of County Commissioners on Monday that the county received a shipment of supplies from the state of Washington. On Tuesday, Deputy Director of Emergency Services Andy Caldwell said “less than one percent” of the county’s total order for supplies had been filled since it was submitted a little over two weeks ago.
According to Caldwell, the county “desperately” needed medical-grade gloves, N-95 or surgical masks, isolation gowns and eye protection. As of Tuesday, the state has sent 85 Tyvek coveralls.
“Right now, the county submits one large order to the state, the state evaluates what they can give us and they ship that down to us,” Caldwell said on Tuesday. “Again, we’ve had less than one percent of our total order filled and that is those 85 coveralls.”
By Wednesday morning, Caldwell said the county received an additional shipment of supplies that included many of the aforementioned items. He said a little over one percent of the total order had now been filled, but he wasn’t yet able to provide an actual figure since he was just starting to sift through the supplies.
He mentioned a call with Congresswoman Jamie Herrera Beutler on Tuesday in which she asked about the county’s need for supplies.
“I can’t tell you why we got this order we got today, other than the fact that maybe the supply chain is moving,” Caldwell said. “(Herrera Beutler) definitely got involved yesterday and we did see movement today, so that’s a great thing.”
The process of submitting a request for supplies starts with an individual entity, which is currently unable to obtain supplies through its normal means, submitting a resource request through Lewis County Emergency Management. The request is evaluated and then entered into WebEOC, a software utilized by the Washington Military Department’s Emergency Management Division that “puts integrated crisis information management within reach of most emergency management agencies”
From there, the requests submitted into the state-monitored software are evaluated by state Emergency Management, as well as the Department of Health, and a determination is made, based upon supply, whether or not the order can or cannot be filled.
In the meeting on Monday, Lewis County Public Health and Social Services Deputy Director John Abplanalp said the Department of Health indicated there were “up to 20 million” surgical masks — 10 million of which are N-95 masks — on order for the state that are expected to be delivered within “days or weeks.”
“They had a pretty optimistic view of the short-term future,” Abplanalp said on Monday. “They also indicated they were working with the Washington State Hospital Association to prioritize hospitals to ensure they at least had a seven-day supply of personal protective equipment on hand, at all times.”
Caldwell, though, doesn’t anticipate that shipment having much of an impact on the local supply chain.
“I don’t think we’re going to see an influx of those here,” Caldwell said. “We want to remain hopeful that that supply chain starts to open up, but they have to prioritize who’s getting the masks.”
He said the Department of Health and state emergency management have developed what’s called a sharing system, used to see where masks are being sent. He also mentioned a secondary system used to watch the hospitals and make sure they have what they need for emergency surgeries.
“The Department of Health is making sure, for those absolutely necessary situations, that the hospitals will have the isolation gowns and the masks and the eye protection they need,” Caldwell said. “I think we can see some of that being reserved for those emergency situations.
“As far as relief for our first responders and all the other people in those medical centers, I don’t see that relief coming at least for another two weeks.”
Caldwell said he can’t put a timeline on when the supply chain through the state might open back up and orders could be fulfilled. He said local means of obtaining resources should see some relief within “10-14 days.”
Other groups have done what they can to offer some assistance in the meantime.
He cited the Chamber of Commerce as an entity that has stepped up to keep supplies from depleting for police departments, fire districts and hospitals in the county. According to Caldwell, the county and the Chamber entered an agreement in which the county would share the locations in which the need for assistance was the greatest. The Chamber’s role was gathering donations and materials for those locations.
So far, he said, the Chamber has assisted “about 27” different entities in Lewis County.
Still, the county hasn’t been able to keep up with demand completely, due to supply becoming more scarce.
“Some of that stuff is getting a little bit harder to get,” Caldwell said. “Masks are getting more expensive.”
The FDA recently approved the KN-95 mask as a substitute for the currently favored N-95 mask, which Caldwell said now costs between $6 or $7 per unit. Other options are becoming available, but he says it’s been the people of Lewis County that have helped anchor the COVID-19 response.
It’s an effort Caldwell called “exciting.”
“The frustration comes in that the state can’t fill our orders,” Caldwell said. “It’s not that they don’t want to. I’m sure their hearts are wanting to give us what we need, but they can’t. I think the great hope in the story is how much the community has stepped up and donated.”
He mentioned how dentists have helped support other medical facilities and how other people around the county have done what they could to make sure first responders and medical personnel have what the resources they need.
Caldwell mentioned the effort is “slowing down a little bit,” but said it’s “amazing” what the community has accomplished to this point.
For Commissioner Edna Fund, the response is just par for the course from Lewis County residents in times of disaster.
“We have a history of that,” Fund said. “We, the big we, Lewis County. When we had the floods and people, citizens, would go out to houses and muck up the mud and work with people. They weren’t waiting for FEMA to come down or anybody else, they just went to work. I see that same work ethic and community ethic going on right now. The people want to know what they can do and how they can help.”
