Annual Chemical Weapons Drill Set for Tuesday
Posted on: Monday, 5 June 2006, 18:00 CDT
By Jeannine Koranda, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.
Jun. 5--HERMISTON -- Communities around the Umatilla Chemical Depot on Tuesday will practice how they would respond to a chemical weapons accident.
The annual exercise will include cities in Umatilla and Morrow counties and communities in southern Benton County. Fire and police departments, emergency management, the Army, local hospitals and volunteers from groups like the Red Cross will participate in the annual exercise, said Stan Ross, exercise and training officer for Oregon Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program.
Because the exercise is in the evening this year, area schools held their mock drills at the end of May.
The drill will focus on the area's communications system, Ross said. People in the area will hear Westminster Chimes over the alarms that would warn if there was an accident at the depot near Hermiston. The large reader boards on interstates 84 and 82 will also flash test messages, but the drill won't activate Umatilla and Morrow counties' new evacuation system.
Tone-alert radios in the area will also run a test message.
The drill this year will use current weather information instead of programmed weather data to better duplicate real emergency conditions, Ross said.
This year also marks the first time that Hermiston's new Safety Center will be used, he said. The center has video-conferencing technology and can be overpressurized in case of a chemical emergency to prevent nerve agent from leaking in.
The annual drills have also helped the counties react to other emergencies, such as wildfires, severe weather conditions and an airplane crash, said Umatilla County Emergency Management spokeswoman Cheryl Seigal.
The drills, and the work the agencies do to prepare for a possible accident at the chemical depot, work out the kinks in emergency response plans and develop relationships that help during emergencies, she said. That helped people work together to quickly get accurate information out to the public.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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Source: Tri-City Herald
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