LATEST NEWS
Monday, May 09, 2005
Annual CSEPP drill
set for Tuesday
By
The East Oregonian
eonews@eastoregonian.com
HERMISTON — The annual
Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program drill will involve emergency
agencies, hospitals and schools close to the depot and not so close.
The exercise will start with a simulated chemical emergency at the
Umatilla Chemical Depot and demonstrate emergency preparedness activities
throughout the communities surrounding the depot. Sirens will sound and test
exercise messages will be displayed, although the precise time of the drill
is not announced beforehand. The public will hear Westminster Chimes on the
sirens in Umatilla and Morrow County, as well as southern Benton County,
Wash., across the Columbia River.
Participants in the drill will include first responders, emergency
management personnel and volunteers from all three counties, the states of
Washington and Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation.
School children in communities surrounding the depot will be involved
in shelter-in-place and evacuation drills earlier in the day, before the
actual drill begins.