Use of the emergency Incident Command System for school-located mass influenza vaccination clinics

In Palm Beach County, Florida, the fall 2005 influenza vaccination season was interrupted by Hurricane Wilma, a particularly destructive storm that resulted in flooding, power outages, extensive property damage, and suspension of many routine community services. In its aftermath, all public health resources were immediately turned to the response and recovery process. School-located mass influenza vaccination (SLV) clinics were scheduled to begin in 1 week, but were necessarily postponed for a month. The juxtaposition of these 2 major public health events afforded the school district, health department, and other community services an opportunity to see their similarities and adopt the Incident Command System structure to manage the SLV clinics across West Palm Beach County, Florida, a geographically large county. Other lessons were learned during the hurricane concerning organizations and people, processes, and communications, and were applicable to school-located mass influenza vaccination programs, and vice versa. Those lessons are related here.