Depot drill leaves Umatilla out of loop

This story was published Sun, Jan 27, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

UMATILLA -- The drill Saturday was supposed to prepare emergency crews for a disaster at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

One problem: Emergency workers at one of the depot's closest neighbors -- the city of Umatilla -- weren't notified of the mock emergency until long after the fictional leak of deadly chemicals had started drifting toward town.

And in other nearby towns, where officials were warned of the mock disaster, problems with radios hampered communications.

Being omitted from the initial call list left Umatilla Fire Chief Mike Roxbury steaming. "I'm pissed," he said.

Nearly an hour after dispatchers had called out fire and law enforcement officials in Hermiston and Boardman, Roxbury and his crew still were sitting inside McNary Market, waiting for official notification of the event.

"If they can't do something as simple as notifying the (expletive) fire department, it makes you wonder about how they will handle the more technical things," Roxbury said.

The Hermiston Fire Department was notified at 9:24 a.m. At 10:15 a.m., Roxbury and his crew, who are trained to help decontaminate victims in an emergency, still were waiting to be dispatched.

"If this were a real emergency, I wouldn't have any idea something was going on," Roxbury said.

"I have three different communication devices on me at this time and none of them have signaled me. Not my cell phone. Not my Nextel (phone). Not my pager."

According to the training scenario, the chemical plume was headed north and northeast, along the Columbia River, which put Umatilla residents directly in its path.

"This is the worst possible breakdown that could happen, from my perspective," Roxbury said.

At the command center in Hermiston, Hermiston Fire Chief Jim Stearns called the failure to notify Roxbury and his crews "an oversight."

Regardless, Stearns had his own share of difficulties to cope with, including a breakdown in the so-called Decision Maker Radio System, a key piece of communication equipment.

Stearns notified the state's Emergency Operation Center in Pendleton that he could hear his crews, but they couldn't hear him.

And Hermiston Police Chief Dan Coulombe had an even more troubling problem. He couldn't communicate at all with his officers.

"This is making it difficult because of all the equipment failure," Stearns said.

Oregon Emergency Management officials called in Larry Ross, a private communications contractor, to help.

Ross discovered Coulombe's system was lacking a functioning microphone. And after troubleshooting Stearn's unit, Ross suggested inconsistencies in the power supply may have locked up the system.

Ross said the breakdowns were beneficial. "I think this has taught them a lesson. They need to get and keep spare parts on hand," he said.

Had it been a real emergency, emergency officials simply would have shifted control of their communications to someone else, such as Oregon State Police dispatchers, Ross said.

Problems with communications extended as far away as Heppner's Pioneer Hospital, where authorities complained that they, too, failed
to receive official notification
of the training event.

Bryan Hopkins, manager with Oregon Public Health for the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program, dismissed Pioneer's role as "tertiary" to the event, since Heppner is 45 miles away from the depot.

And, he said, even though the exercise "doesn't look polished, right things are happening."

He pointed to the hospitals in Pendleton and Hermiston, where decontamination facilities successfully processed people playing the part of victims.

Hopkins downplayed the delay in notifying Umatilla crews.

"Roxbury is pissed because he didn't get called out when every-one else did," he said.

"He should've been notified. We should've had our ducks in a row. But in a real emergency he would've known. He would've heard the sirens and tone alert on the radio," Hopkins said.

"It's not a big deal. His crews got deployed at the same time as everyone else."

That's true, Roxbury said. Saturday's exercise was set up so that the decontamination units were deployed long after the first alert.

However, it still meant his crew had an hour less time to get ready. "It put the crunch on them," Roxbury said.

He intends to make sure such an oversight is not overlooked.

"I plan to raise holy hell at the next governor's review board," Roxbury declared.

A review of Saturday's event will be presented Wednesday to the Governor's Emergency Review panel.

Gov. John Kitzhaber has said he won't allow the depot to start incinerating the 3,717 tons of chemical weapons stored at the depot until he is sure residents living nearby are protected in the event of a chemical accident.

The Army plans to test the incinerator in May, using mock rockets.

 

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