EXERCISE AT UCD 

Published: May 13, 2005

By Karen Hutchinson-Talaski
Staff writer

HERMISTON - First responders, Umatilla Chemical Depot employees,
Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program officials and others
were put through their paces during the mock exercise held at the depot on
Tuesday.

The evening's events started about 5:09, when a call came into the depot's
operations center. This exercise marked the first time the media was invited
to the OC.

"Two rockets have exploded. We have four men down, no fires, but a lot of
smoke," said the voice over the radio.

Immediately, operations officers were on the phone and on computers,
monitoring weather patterns, contacting the off-post community and
determining which sectors in the Immediate Response Zone (IRZ) would be
recommended to shelter-in-place or evacuate.

A bell rang before Operations Center coordinator Marty Yakawich (the senior
civilian on post) explained the situation into a microphone to
communications specialists, hazard analysts and other depot and civilian
employees as they entered the OC.

The exercise is part of the yearly evaluation of off- and on-post response
to a potential chemical emergency at the depot. Evaluators and observers
from all over the U.S.  were on hand to see how things are run.

The observers almost outnumbered workers as they watched the exercise
playing out on the depot. Nearly all who watched were from other chemical
agent facilities or other government agencies.

Within 10 minutes of hearing about the accident, depot commander Lt. Col.
David Holliday had determined depot personnel should shelter-in-place.

During this year's exercise, computer simulated weather was used to simulate
a chemical agent plume heading north to Benton County, Wash. Benton County,
as well as Umatilla and Morrow counties participated in the exercise.

While depot workers were responding to the emergency, off-post first
responders were taking care of business as well.

In Hermiston, fire chief Jim Stearns says the off-post community did their
job.

"The outside people did their job well," Stearns said. "The exercise was
very successful. It accomplished what it was supposed to do."

Stearns did say there were some areas in which details need to be worked
out, however, "we have the nuts and bolts worked out."

"We wrestled with the transfer of information," Stearns said. "The field
decontamination sites did an excellent job."

Stearns feels his group passed the benchmarks. A preliminary evaluation will
be presented to the public Friday morning at the Joint Information Center at
the CSEPP offices in Pendleton.

Meg Capps, CSEPP program manager, says she thought their part of the
exercise went "very well."

"There are still things to work on, but we did very well," Capps said. "We
changed some things, but they were changes for the better."

One thing that was different was having the incident commander located in
Hermiston rather than in Pendleton. Having someone in charge close to the
scene was an advantage, Capps says.

"I feel confident in our abilities (to respond)," Capps said.

Mary Binder, public affairs for the depot, says the commander was "pleased
with what they saw."

"It was a good exercise," Binder said. "We did what we wanted to do." The
purpose of the exercise is an opportunity to "hone our skills," Binder
said.

Various contamination stations were set up at Hermiston's Good Shepherd
Medical Center, St. Anthony's Hospital in Pendleton, Boardman Rest Stop,
Lexington Public Works and Pioneer Hospital in Heppner. The American Red
Cross set up shelters in six communities around the depot. Additionally, for
the first time, reception centers were set up at the Wildhorse Casino near
Pendleton and at the old Kinzua plant outside of Heppner.

Rick Rice, spokesperson for Good Shepherd, says the hospital felt positive
about the exercise.