Presidential State of the Union address, President Bush includes his wish that each American dedicates himself or herself to two years service or 4,000 hours, as a community volunteer.

Application for Grant Funding to start the Chatham County Medical Reserve Corps is made and submitted to Washington D.C.

Chatham County Medical Reserve Corps become a reality.

09/04 First Conference/Drill takes place at the Carolina Stock Yard. This conference addresses the issue of Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreak and the

Disaster Response to such an outbreak. Participants included in this exercise were: Chatham County Health Department, Chatham County Emergency Operations Center, State Veterinarians Office, State Bureau of Investigation,

as well as area Law Enforcement agencies and Medical Reserve Corps volunteers. Participants became familiar with planning regarding response and quarantine hot zone guidelines for a large geographical area.

10/04 Medical Reserve Corps, Orientation. This training included CERT and Townsend Poultry Processing Plant. This orientation included ICS (Incident Command Structure) as may be found on the FEMA web site.

04/05 Medical Reserve Corps Conference in San Francisco, CA. is attended by Bill Lail and Kelly Jolley, from the Chatham County Medical Reserve Corps.

04/05 MRC holds an orientation to address the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS).  Presenters were Dr. Heidi Swygard,  MD and Phyllis Rocco, RN. Speakers addressed the local response to a major medical disaster.

05/05 Conference in San Francisco, CA. hosted by the office of the U.S. 

Surgeon Generals Office. This conference was designed to better equip MRC

Units with tools needed to effectively respond to public health emergencies in their areas.

05/05 Mass vaccination exercise (avian flu) mock catastrophic medical situation

06/05 Bio Terrorism response conference, local health professionals and First responders discussed local health plan with small pox as being the focus disease and how health care providers would work in conjunction with Law Enforcement and others to assist the Health Departments.

07/05 Hurricane Conference/Drill. Worst-case scenario, a category 5 hurricane strikes North Carolina with this area (Chatham County) already saturated after several day of rain. Participants were given one hour to resolve the challenges presented to them in the scenario. Participants included the Chatham County director of the Emergency Operations Center, Tony Tucker speaking of the county organizational structure under such conditions. The conference then broke into groups and were given a scenario to with challenges to resolve. Attendees included CERT members from Fearrington and other surrounding areas, Medical Reserve Corps members, Law Enforcement, area Churches and Sheltering locations.