Decontamination
workers wash down the victim with a special neutralizing solution as he covers
his eye in the shower tent at Good Shepherd Medical Center. Staff photo by
Don Cresswell
HERMISTON — Officials
report few obvious glitches in a daylong test Wednesday of how well-prepared
nearby communities are for a potential emergency at the Umatilla Chemical
Depot.
The drill, conducted annually, could be the final test before the
anticipated destruction of the nearly 3,700 tons of chemical weapons at the
depot, which could begin in July. The drill involved nearly 10,000 students,
teachers and staff at school districts in six local communities.
The depot is one of eight sites across the country storing the nation’s
stockpile of chemical weapons. It has about 12 percent of the nation’s total
supply — including nerve and blister agents — contained within a variety
of munitions.
The exercise started with a report of the “explosion” of an M55 rocket
as it was moved from a storage igloo on depot property to the incineration
facility nearby. In the mock scenario, the rocket reportedly contained GB
(sarin) nerve agent, which became airborne during the explosion, heading
northwest over Irrigon toward Benton County, Wash.
The drill, conducted by the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness
Program (CSEPP), is meant to test the training and response times of emergency
responders who would be needed in the event of a real accident at the depot.
This is the 13th year for the annual exercise.
Depot officials then notified local community leaders and fire and
police personnel, according to Megg Capps, emergency manager for Umatilla
County.
Community leaders then began to activate sirens around Hermiston,
Stanfield, Echo, Boardman, Irrigon and Umatilla — the cities closest to the
depot and at the most risk in a chemical accident.
This was the first CSEPP drill held in the daytime, allowing the
schools to participate in real-time.
Hermiston High School attempted to stick to the CSEPP script, but
activated its emergency response a minute or two sooner than the actual start
of the drill.
Brad Sperry, a vice principal at HHS, waited by the tone-alert radio
for his cue but became anxious as the minutes passed 10 a.m.
At about 10:27, he turned to Jesse Seigal, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency representative on site and asked for suggestions.
“I have lunch in 10 minutes,” he said. “Once it starts, the kids
are going to go off in any which direction. I think we’re going to have to
do it.”
He then made the announcement for the students to head to the gymnasium,
which can be over-pressurized to block any air from the outside.
The process went smoothly, with students and school employees quickly
arriving in the gym and settling in.
Students said the drill was no big deal.
“It’s my fourth drill,” said 18-year-old Daniel Santiago, a senior.
“It’s always well organized.”
“The veterans know what they’re doing,” said Becky Barton, also 18
and a senior. “For the freshmen, it might be kinda new, but I think it went
off well.”
About 300 students over at A.C. Houghton Elementary in Irrigon reacted
much the same.
“I think it’s part of their life here in Irrigon,” said fourth grade
teacher Cynthia Hodgdon. “These kids have been drilling all of their school
careers.”
Principal John Sebastian said the goal is to reduce the nervousness
involved with an actual emergency.
“You have to take the excitability out of it,” Sebastian said.
The CSEPP drill did run into a couple of obvious snags along the
way.
At Desert View Elementary in Hermiston, a fire alarm went off within
minutes of the CSEPP sirens.
“The timing couldn’t be tougher to manage,” said Principal Mark Mulvihill.
He evacuated the building, as is typically done with possible building
fires. However, the CSEPP response to a chemical accident is to shelter-in-place,
meaning no one should leave the school.
If it had been a real emergency at the depot and a real fire in the
building, he said he would have had to evacuate the students and put them
on buses headed toward Pendleton.
Another glitch in the exercise came when a semi truck rolled over
on Truck Route 207 in Hermiston, at the corner of Diagonal Road and Elm Avenue.
Police and paramedics responded to the real accident before responding to
the mock accident at the intersection of highways 395 and 730.
Hermiston Fire Chief Jim Stearns said during the course of the CSEPP
exercise, crews responded to four real-world emergency calls, but the rollover
was the only incident that pulled crews away from the exercise.
“Had (the mock two-car accident) been a real event, we would have
gone to both at the same time,” he said. “But we didn’t want to leave the
community without ambulance coverage.”
State and federal evaluators witnessed all aspects of Wednesday’s
drill. A report on how well the communities responded will be given Friday
at 9 a.m. at the Umatilla Joint Information Center at the Umatilla County
Justice Center in Pendleton.
