Mock disasters test county’s readiness

by Karen Lee Scott
Staff Writer

As if dealing with a chemical fire, car crash and bomb threat wasn’t enough for emergency responders yesterday, there was also a heart attack victim, a narcotics overdose situation and a family tainted with pesticide fumes to be taken care of as well.

Though the incidents were only simulated, the nearly 300 people participating in the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program’s (CSEPP) annual training exercise had to pretend the events were real.

Participants ranged from actor/victims to evaluators and emergency responders.

“We try to make this as absolutely realistic as possible,” said Kari Sagers, director of Tooele County Emergency Management (TCEM).

She said it takes a team of people nearly a year to plan out all of the occurrences. Sagers also noted that the plans are kept secret from those involved, including herself.

“We’ve done this for a number of years,” said Sheriff Frank Park. “It does get easier, but hopefully we don’t get complacent.” As far as being prepared for a real emergency Park said he thinks everyone is pretty well prepared especially “for a small country hick town.”

Kicking off the chain of fake events was an incident at Deseret Chemical Depot where a hydrogen tank’s valve stem broke off causing the tank to propel forward into the fuel tank of a nearby flatbed truck which happened to have a leaking VX spray tank on it. The impact caused a fire and the area was evacuated. Emergency sirens were also activated.

Hearing the sirens, a Rush Valley mother decides to get her family out of town. Her husband and children were in the garage working with pesticides and some of the chemicals had spilled onto the children’s clothes and floor.

The mother tells the family they have to leave immediately. The family gets in their car and becomes sick from the fumes on the children’s clothes while driving to Tooele but they believe they have been contaminated by the depot and head for the hospital.

Meanwhile, due to the depot incident, a traffic control point and decontamination site is set up in Stockton.

As it is being put together, a husband and wife decide to evacuate their Stockton home and as they are leaving the husband experiences chest pains and collapses. The wife takes him to Mountain West Medical Center.

Upon arrival he slumps over in the vehicle. He is not breathing and has no pulse. Plans for him to be airlifted to a hospital in Salt Lake are made.

Once the traffic control point is completely set up, a group of eight students from Arizona who had been camping in Ophir pulls up to the checkpoint obviously unaware of what had happened on the depot. While at the stop it is discovered that one of the students had overdosed on a narcotic and would have to be taken to the hospital.

A few minutes later, near the same area, a car crashes into a telephone pole and catches fire. Four people are injured and taken to the hospital and three responders suffer minor burns and smoke inhalation.

While these events were taking place in Stockton, a bomb threat was called into Tooele High School. The school was actually evacuated and the bomb squad discovered the mock device. Students stayed out of the building for about 30 minutes, but had the event been real they would have had to stay out for an hour.

Wade Mathews, TCEM public information officer, said four other schools (Grantsville Middle School, Tooele Junior High School, Tooele High School South Campus and Copper Canyon Elementary) practiced evacuation drills at the same time. He said Assistant Superintendent Mike Johnsen told him that all schools in the district will practice their emergency drills during next year’s CSEPP exercise.

Overall Mathews said the exercise went well, but that they won’t get full feedback from the evaluators for about another two to three weeks.

He said most of the time only minor things need improvement though sometimes major findings are found.

“It’s just a relief to have another [exercise] under our belt. The anticipation is always high leading up to the event,” said Mathews.

“Compared to previous years, this one was different in one significant way — the chemical agent never left the depot,” he added.

He said the reason for this was that “real world weather” instead of “simulated weather” was used in the scenario and that because of that factor the mock agent could never really have left the scene of the accident.

He said as the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility continues to burn what is left of the depot’s stockpile, the exercise scenario’s will have to get even more creative because the actual threat from the depot is decreasing.

e-mail: kscott@tooeletranscript.com