Severe weather causes a Department of Corrections bus and a passenger van loaded with deaf and speech-impaired passengers to collide on U.S. Hwy. 84. Power and telephone lines are down in Florala and Opp. Hospital and emergency officials must decide quickly what to do.

That was the scenario Wednesday as Andalusia Regional and Mizell Memorial hospitals hosted its annual emergency preparedness drill.

County EMA director Susan Harris said the drills are an annual requirement for hospitals, as well as an exercise for EMA staff.

“It’s an opportunity to test different areas that we may not have many incidents,” Harris said. “For example, this drill included inmates and deaf and mute people. We were able to get experience in many different areas as far as organizing treatment, communications and to check plans to make sure things are in place.

“It’s important to have these exercises because it allows the everyone to know what their roles are in the case of where we have mass casualties,” she said. “Everyone did a tremendous job (Wednesday).”