The improvements are part of an evacuation plan for the area around Hermiston if disaster were to strike the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

"It will allow (emergency responders) with the touch of a button to realign the signals," Casey Beard, Morrow County emergency management director, told the Chemical Stockpile Preparedness Plan Governing Board on Wednesday.

All but three traffic cameras are installed, he said. Now, officials are working on how to use the cameras for things other than emergencies, such as traffic infractions.

He said the system will go online in about a month.

The depot, 35 miles south of the Tri-Cities, stores 220,604 munitions and containers filled with 7.4 million pounds of deadly nerve and mustard agents. The chemicals are set for incineration sometime this summer.

Mustard agents stored at the depot date back to World War II. All the nerve agents were brought to the depot for storage between 1962 and 1969.

The cameras and traffic improvements are part of a plan to efficiently evacuate people unable to shelter in place if an accident were to take place at the depot.

The plan also includes construction upgrades to Elm Avenue and Diagonal Boulevard and improvements to Highland Avenue to better allow drivers to evacuate quickly.

Beard said he anticipated work on Highland Avenue to be completed in August, while work on Elm Avenue and Diagonal Boulevard would begin about that time.

Original estimates for the cost of the overall evacuation plan had been $11 million. But by eliminating some parts of the project, the total cost is expected to be closer to $7 million, Beard said.

Parking upgrades around the Umatilla County Fairgrounds were removed, he said.

The Immediate Response Information System, or IRIS, which includes a bar-code system to track people treated for contamination from a chemical event, first responder equipment and personnel, nearly is ready to be used, he said.

Beard said he hopes the system will be ready for test exercises in August or September at Good Shepherd Hospital in Hermiston.

Meg Capps, Umatilla County emergency management director, said the 450-megahertz radio system is nearing completion. The system is designed to handle the large amount of communication between emergency officials.

Police and fire departments in Pendleton, Hermiston and Umatilla already are using the system as is all of Morrow County, she said.

Hermiston Fire Chief Jim Sterns gave the system high marks.

"There are not too many places in the U.S. where everybody can all talk to the same radio system without interruption," he said.

With the 450-megahertz system, Umatilla and Morrow counties have more advance communication capabilities than firefighters and police did in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, Capps said.