Emergency officials in nine Central West Virginia counties have been preparing for months for a "Mountain Host" exercise, which will test the region's abilities to handle a mass migration.

The nine counties include Barbour, Braxton, Gilmer, Lewis, Pendleton, Randolph, Tucker, Upshur and Webster.

The federal government originally coined the idea, in the event of a mass migration westward from the densely-populated East Coast following 9-11 type disasters.

A program this week is directed toward testing communications systems.

"If we would have a large influx of patients, we'd take them out to the surrounding hospitals and try to disperse them out so not one hospital would get a large amount of patients," said Chris McCall, assistant coordinator of Lewis County Emergency Medical Services.