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On Wednesday a joint response team with emergency officials from Utah, Salt Lake and Tooele counties participated in an annual emergency drill, called the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program.
The drill is designed to improve the response of emergency personnel in the event of a chemical disaster. Emergency planners from the area have been participating in the program since 1989.
This year's drill mimicked a leak at the depot, which prompted teams to set up areas to spray down with water and decontaminate those who thought they had been exposed to the chemicals.
"The best way to get rid of the chemical agent, first off, is to wash it off the body," said Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman Robert Norville, as medical teams set up a temporary decontamination site at the Mountain West Medical Center in Tooele Wednesday morning.
At the same time, medical officials and firefighters responded to a mock car accident in Stockton. Tooele High School officials also evacuated the students because of a pretend bomb scare.
In Fairfield, Utah County officials stopped the cars of volunteers traveling along State Road 73. Those coming from Tooele County were directed to a decontamination site and to a shelter, located in Eagle Mountain. Many volunteers who were acting as victims were from the American Fork Junior High School.
The drill gives the agencies a chance to see if their operational plans are functional and, if not, where they can be improved, said Randy Frank, director of Emergency Services for the Mountain Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross. It also creates an opportunity for employees of different agencies -- who would work together in the event of a disaster -- to get to know each other, he said.
"During a disaster is no time to develop relationships," Frank said.
The drill not only helps prepare for a potential chemical disaster, but also helps prepare for incidents the agencies have to respond to throughout the year, said Sgt. Spencer Cannon of the Utah County Sheriff's Office. In particular, the practice of coordinating volunteers and communicating with agencies is useful. For example, it helped with the search for avalanche victims in Aspen Grove last winter, he said.
During this year's drill, Utah County particularly wanted to focus on improving communication between the different organizations, Cannon said. To that end, they started using e-mail messages, which Cannon said were more time-efficient than relying solely on telephone and dispatch.
"It actually worked really well," he said.
During the drill, a number of officials from other states and FEMA watched and evaluated the team. A report detailing the strengths and weaknesses of the agencies who participated in the drill will be available within the next month or so.
The Deseret Chemical Depot is one of eight chemical stockpiles throughout the nation. At one time, the depot in Tooele housed nearly 45 percent of the nation's chemical warfare weapons. But the government has been destroying the chemical weapons at the site since a disposal center was built there in 1985.
All the chemical weapons and agents created in the nation in World War I are scheduled to be destroyed as part of a treaty agreement with Russia. In Tooele, the weapons should be burned or neutralized by 2007.
The federal government will fund disaster preparedness exercises until the chemicals are destroyed at the depot. Each year, the area receives about $2 million for response equipment and to conduct the emergency drill.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C1.