Local veteran provides COVID aid after retiring home

Shortly after returning to his childhood home of Butler County, Col. Doug Rose visited Pennsylvania to aid with COVID-19 relief.

Rose

Rose, who grew up in Qulin and graduated from Twin Rivers R-X, retired in December from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

After a few months in Little Rock, Arkansas, he came to Poplar Bluff in mid-March.

By the first week of April, he was on his way to work in three Pennsylvania towns setting up long-term care facilities for COVID-19. He served as the project manager and helped develop strategies.

Rose said topics he considered were: site design, wrap around service, janitorial and cleaning, the hazardous material disposal, dining opportunities, staffing and how to help ensure the sites met federal medical decisions.

When Rose left FEMA, he joined a company called Optimal Solutions and Technology, where he could put his emergency management training to use.

“When the pandemic came up, they asked me to go to Pennsylvania,” Rose said. “So, I loaded up my truck and headed to Pennsylvania.”

After six weeks there, he returned to Poplar Bluff last Saturday.

Rose aided in setting up long-term care facilities in Glen Mills Schools, East Stroudsburg University and Temple University while in Pennsylvania.

Col. Doug Rose Jr. on his last day with FEMA in North Little Rock, Ark.Photo provided

“I could see them (patients) from a distance, but I was always pretty much in a management position in the green-zone area,” he said. “The only spot where we had patients was at Temple University.”

If they were in the Black River Coliseum, Rose explained, he would have been in the sky box seating while patients were on the court.

The Temple University facility has 200 beds spread around the arena floor that look like “little, open bay hospital beds.”

From his perspective working on these facilities, Rose said, many communities have focused on hospitals and immediate care.

“As you look at now, long-term care facilities seem to be some spots that are understaffed and perhaps need some attention building themselves a culture of preparedness,” Rose said.

While the curve with COVID “may be flattening a bit,” there are still a lot of factors with the virus that scientists don’t know, Rose said.

He encouraged communities to take this time to prepare for the chance of another spike of cases in fall.

“(If) it’s your house (a plan) with cleaning and disinfecting, the social distancing and using masks,” he said.

Rose said he hopes to go back to his original retirement goals now, which includes a hope to volunteer with Butler County Emergency Management to offer his experiences there.