ARSENAL, AREA AGENCIES HOLD EMERGENCY EXERCISE

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday, February 9, 2006 9:48 AM CST

Pine Bluff Commercial/Ralph Fitzgerald The Army medical team responds at the hospital and administers help to the first casualty from a mock explosion inside an igloo at the Pine Bluff Arsenal involving a chemical accident.

Hundreds of people on and off post participated in a mock emergency scenario involving chemical weapons at the Pine Bluff Arsenal on Wednesday.

The Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program partners with the arsenal and federal and state agencies each year to test how well emergency crews would respond in a real event.

The Department of Homeland Security, Pine Bluff Chemical Activity and the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management worked collaboratively to design the exercise.

This year’s scenario involved the transportation of land mines containing the nerve agent VX. Crews responded as though an explosion had occurred near one of the concrete igloos where the weapons are stored.

At just before 9 a.m. Wednesday the exercise began as sirens and tone alert radios were sounded on the arsenal and in CSEPP-designated Emergency Response Zones A and J, which are located southwest of the chemical weapons storage site.

The first ambulance to transport the “victims” passed through the arsenal gates at 9:10 a.m. and made its way to the site.

At the arsenal’s Operations Center, personnel manned telephones, received updates and carried out emergency procedures.

Richard Sloan, a CSEPP public affairs officer from the Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond, Ky., said the Operations Center keeps track of the status of “everything going on at any one particular time.”

Lt. Col. Casey Scott, commander of the Pine Bluff Chemical Activity, provided a status report about 9:30 a.m., telling personnel that the mock explosion involved three land mines and that four of the eight employees were hurt.

“We understand that the plume is coming out of the east and blowing toward the southwest,” Scott said.

The plume that would have been created by the mock explosion traveled southwest across Interstate 530 as part of Wednesday’s scenario, he said.

A “hotline” area was set up near the mock accident, where a field command post and a portable decontamination unit were put in place to make sure anyone who had been potentially exposed to agent was decontaminated.

The portable trailer is sectioned off into separate rooms that a person passes through while being sprayed from the neck down with a mixture of water and 5 percent bleach, Sloan said.

After walking through the unit, the person will come out wearing only a mask, which is also removed and disposed of after the process is complete. All contaminated clothing and other materials are destroyed.

The four injured employees were taken to an on-post medical clinic where another decontamination unit was on hand, then transported to Jefferson Regional Medical Center.

At the clinic, the first “victim” could be seen shaking on a gurney as crews wearing olive drab protective rubber suits, black masks and boots examined him.

The nerve agent VX is a quick-acting, lethal agent that causes symptoms including pinpointed pupils, runny nose, difficulty breathing, nausea, vomiting, urination, defecation, localized involuntary muscular movement, convulsions and cessation of breathing.

Paul Leykamm, spokesman for the Army’s Chemical Materials Agency, said the most serious injuries would be treated first during a real event. The first victim was described as a “serious nerve agent patient,” meaning that he exhibited more than two symptoms of nerve agent poisoning.

The second victim had injuries consisting of an “impaled object through the neck,” a possible spinal injury and suspected nerve agent poisoning. The other two injuries were described as less serious.

Bill Bischof, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said Jefferson County has the most prominent role in the exercise because of its proximity to the site, but nine other CSEPP counties participated as well: Grant, Saline, Pulaski, Lonoke, Prairie, Arkansas, Lincoln, Cleveland and Dallas.

“Those county judges have got their own emergency plans that are being conducted as well,” he said, adding, “There are probably a couple thousand people working on this exercise throughout the 10 counties.”

This year’s off-post portion of the exercise was scaled down, partly because emergency responders got some practice with opening shelters and reception centers after Hurricane Katrina, said Wayne Norton, public information officer for the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management.

Jefferson County Judge Jack Jones said potential actions that might be taken during a real chemical event also include restricting river, railroad and highway traffic. He said the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department did set up a staging area near the Big Red Travel Plaza on U.S. 270 at White Hall, however.

At an emergency operations center in the basement of the Jefferson County Courthouse, county officials, mayors, law enforcement officials and representatives from several state and federal agencies gathered to coordinate the off-post emergency response.

“The whole idea of the exercise is to ensure that all of the emergency response people work together seamlessly,” Sloan said.

An evaluation team will present its findings in a draft to the arsenal’s commander on Monday. The final report will be available to the public at a later date.