Disaster Drill to Feature Cruise Ship Katahdin

By Diana Bowley, Bangor Daily News, Maine

Jun. 5–GREENVILLE, Maine — There has never been a disaster while the 200-ton Katahdin has served as a cruise ship on Moosehead Lake, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be one in the future.

That possibility has Emergency Management Agency directors in five counties focusing on the 94-year-old steamship for mass casualty training late this summer.

Local game wardens with the Maine Warden Service will develop the mass casualty scenario and serve as command for the event. Ideas exchanged during the first planning meeting Wednesday in Greenville included a mock fire or a mock explosion on board ship.

Those participating in the full-scale event to be held on Aug. 24 include medical officials, search and rescue teams, law enforcement, firefighters, the Maine Forest Service, the Department of Environmental Protection, the town of Greenville, local hospitals, the Piscataquis Amateur Radio Club, the captain of the Katahdin, Piscataquis County commissioners, and EMA officials in Washington, Penobscot, Hancock, Waldo and Piscataquis counties.

“We want to tax our resources in the region and be able to respond to a disaster of this nature,” Piscataquis County EMA Director Tom Iverson said Wednesday.

The exercise will demonstrate the ability of participating agencies to command and control a mass disaster. Iverson said the event will be good training, and the evaluation afterward will note where improvements are needed. Iverson said that normally this type of event takes at least five months of preparation, but officials are hoping to get the event lined up in two months.

“I think anything thrown at us is going to test our resources,” Greenville Police Chief Scott MacMaster said Wednesday.

Ralph Pinkham, Hancock County EMA director, said the exercise would be good training in the event a marine casualty occurred in the five-county area. “Most people want us to be prepared,” he said.

The exercise will take lots of work on the part of all participants, from lining up medical help to finding enough boats to evacuate passengers from the Katahdin and in the water. In addition, help is needed from the public.

Since the Katahdin is licensed for 225 passengers but typically takes about 150 on cruises, more than 60 people of all ages are being sought to play victims in the mock disaster. Volunteers can call Beth Young at the Greenville town office at 695-2421.

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