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Disaster drill tests county response
The cloud of deadly gas was invisible -- because it wasn't really there -- but for emergency responders from Elmore County last Wednesday's disaster drill was a chance to learn what they'd have to do in the event of a real disaster.
Wednesday's drill involved more than 200 people, representing dozens of federal, state and local agencies, as part of a Department of Homeland Security weapons of mass destruction exercise.
Four counties took part in the drill -- Elmore, Boise, Valley and Ada -- to test not only how local emergency crews would respond, but also how the state would handle multiple incidents.
Because tabletop exercises held in March had already shown state resources would be overloaded if four major disasters occured at once -- in each of the four counties -- the regional drill was spread out over several days. But still, it was specifically designed to stress resources, test communications and evaluate technical skills.
The scenario behind the drill involved an Idaho militia group, whose leader was on trial, initiating a series of attacks simultaneously in the four counties.
In Elmore County the "attack" involved dynamiting the railroad tracks as a train carrying passengers and both anhydrous ammonia and chlorine gases was derailed near the grain silos in town.
When police, fire and ambulance crews began arriving at the scene they found more than 20 "victims" laying around the scene. Each of the volunteer victims was in elaborate make-up representing their bloody wounds, from shards of glass sticking out of one victim's abdomen, to blood-soaked head wounds and major lacerations. The victims had each been briefed on how to properly present their injuries so that firemen and medical crews would be forced to conduct proper triage -- deciding which injuries to deal with immediately and which could wait.
Fire chief Phil Gridley was the first to arrive on the scene and immediately began calling for additional resources to supplement the city's first responders. Fire crews from the base and Boise began rolling. The state and the base sent hazardous materials teams. Northwest Paramedics sent ambulances from Boise and launched a fleet of helicopters to respond.
City police and sheriff's department personnel began sealing off the streets surrounding the disaster scene, and some began a check for "secondary" explosives, designed to take out first responders after they arrived, while at the same time beginning a major evacuation (simulated) of nearly 1,500 area residents.
The gas cloud made dealing with the victims difficult. Gridley got on a bullhorn and called out for the walking wounded from the train wreck (represented by an overturned semi-tractor) to move to a designated safe area. But once they got there, they weren't allowed to go beyond a red tape barrier. They would have to be decontaminated before they could be treated -- so that fire and medical crews wouldn't become victims as well.
Some of them, playing their parts to the hilt, couldn't understand why they weren't being allowed to move on to the waiting ambulances and tried to force the barrier line, requiring firemen and police to restrain them and send them back, as yet untreated.
Gridley and Chief Deputy Sheriff Nick Schilz, the county's disaster services coordinator, quickly set up the on-scene emergency command post, known as the Incident Command Center, while some firemen began donning hazarous materials uniforms, complete with gas masks, and others began to rapidly set up special decontamination showers.
For the victims it seemed like forever, as it took nearly 30 minutes from the time of the initial call to dispatch until fire crews were ready to safely begin moving into the contaminated disaster scene.
At first, they did little more than try and find each of the victims and "tag" them with cards that indicated their triage status (green -- they can wait, red -- immediate care, black -- dead). Evaluators later suggested that they could have done some preliminary first aid, but the firemen had been trained to get the victims to medical crews as quickly as possible.
Having learned from previous training drills that it could take 10-12 minutes for a man encumbered in a hazmat (hazardous materials protective) suit to carry a victim on a stretcher 200 yards, and he would be worn out when he got done, the suited-up firemen were sent in by trailers pulled by pick-up trucks, which also allowed them to load the victims in the vehicles and clear the scene quicker.
As victims were decontaminated, ambulance crews began rushing them to Elmore Medical Center (and Boise hospitals -- the base hospital wasn't able to play that day), while the hospital did a more complete decontamination and then moved them into the emergency room for treatment.
With the Incident Command Center set up, Gridley turned command over to Bud Corbus, one of his lieutenants, and he and Schilz headed to the police station where an Emergency Operations Center was set up.
The Incident Command Center (ICC), a specially designed trailer heavy on communications capabilities, was something that had developed in drills several years ago and has been used in the "real world" on several occasions. But this was the first time an Emergency Operations Center had ever been created.
While the ICC is designed for tactical control of a scene, the EOC is designed for "strategic" direction of a disaster. It brings together not only the top emergency service officials, the sheriff, fire chief, police chief and ambulance service director, for example, but also involves elected officials and representatives of groups such as the Red Cross.
The elected officials (Elmore County was the only one of the four counties in the drill to have real politicians on hand), would have to make a number of vital calls in such an emergency, authorizing, for example, special expenditures of funds and contacting state and federal agencies for long-term assistance. Red Cross officials were on hand at the EOC, and as the drill unfolded they began planning for what would happen 24-48 hours after the initial disaster.
For example, as part of the drill scenario, law enforcement would have evacuated all residences within a half-mile radius of the site. Special maps were printed out by the police department showing where elderly shut-ins were in the area that would need help getting out of their homes.
The old Kmart building was appropriated (simulated) as a refugee center for the evacuees. The Red Cross would begin setting up facilities to feed and house the evacuees, as well as compiling lists of people who were "safe," so that relatives calling into the area could be assured their loved ones were OK.
The EOC experienced a number of glitches, as was to be expected, according to Schilz. "That's why we do these drills, to learn what is needed so when it happens for real everything runs as smooth as possible."
Communications, always a trouble point in a major disaster, suffered a number of glitches. There weren't enough phone lines (cell phones won't work in a disaster because the relay centers would quickly become overloaded with calls, crashing the system). There were problems with the "paper trail" that would inevitably follow a major disaster. Dispatch was too busy handling the crews arriving at the scene to make the phone calls to alert the elected officials.
By noon, the drill was essentially over and participants filled the meeting room at the fire station for the initial critique (more detailed written critiques would follow later). Evaluators, from the base, state and federal agencies, offered some initial suggestions for improvements, most of them fairly minor, but all were considered seriously by the drill participants.
The FBI thought they should been notified sooner, for example.
The hospital identified problems with media security (the Mountain Home News reporter was able to walk right into the triage area, for example).
Bud Corbus was highly critical of his own performance running the ICC, but evaluators thought he was too hard on himself, singling him out with high praise for his ability to handle the myriad details necessary to get a dozen different responding agencies coordinated on the scene.
But, as they identified areas to correct, evaluators were generally "quite pleased" with the results of the drill.
"As a whole, as a community, this has been a positive exercise," Schilz said at the conclusion of the evaluation. "We grew up a lot today."