RICHMOND - Emergency room nurses huddled around
an anxious, shivering Model Laboratory High School student yesterday as she
described exposure to nerve agent from the Blue Grass Army Depot.
The student, Kendra Ritter, was faking it, but so were others
who participated in the annual test of the region's disaster preparedness.
Yesterday's drill was the most elaborate yet. Fayette school
administrators prepared for an influx of 15,000 people from the stricken
area. Model Laboratory students pretending to be nursing home patients were
bused to Eastern State Hospital in Lexington. Students from Montessori Middle
School of Kentucky in Lexington went to three hospitals for treatment.
Watching over the 400 players were 100 evaluators, many of
them flown in from around the country, to test Madison County's readiness
to handle a chemical disaster.
Emergency management officials fielded phone calls with questions
and dealt with pesky make-believe reporters. The emergency room at Richmond's
Pattie A. Clay Hospital buzzed with a mixture of fake patients, nurses, evaluators,
journalists and the occasional real patient.
"It was a little scary," said Kendra, a 16-year-old junior
who was chilly from being hosed down to decontaminate her. "I've never actually
been a patient in a hospital."
Officials at the many local, state and federal agencies who
protect the public from the depot's 523 tons of chemical weapons say the
odds of a disaster are remote.
Yesterday's exercise began with a simulated explosion at one
of the depot's storage facilities, called igloos. A small number of rockets
filled with GB, a nerve agent, were damaged. Injured workers were decontaminated
at the depot and sent to hospitals.
Emergency management officials use computer modeling and weather
data to predict where a plume of the chemical weapons might go.
Based on that prediction, residents are told whether they
will be evacuated or sheltered in place -- using duct tape and plastic sheeting
to keep the chemical out of their homes.
At Waco Elementary School in eastern Madison County, the 480
pupils made it into the specially pressurized gym in four minutes, far less
than the time it would take a toxic plume to travel from the depot.
Some teachers at Waco have been trained to drive school buses
in case an evacuation is necessary, principal Rhonda Flynn said.
If a disaster occurred, Jacobson Park in Lexington would be
used as a staging area, and every hospital in the region would brace for
a rush of visitors. Fayette, Jessamine and Laurel counties have been designated
as potential sites for relocated victims.
Pat Dugger, Lexington's director of environmental and emergency
management, said the exercise served its purpose.
"We learned about some hiccups," she said, "which you want
to do in a drill."
The officials involved will participate in a series of evaluations
to see what needs work for next year.
