2 fire departments overlooked in depot drill

This story was published Tue, Jan 29, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON -- Umatilla Fire Chief Mike Roxbury said Monday that he is shocked his department was simply forgotten during the weekend's emergency disaster drill.

Fire crews from Umatilla, which is a few miles from the Umatilla Chemical Depot, weren't notified of a drill simulating a chemical disaster at the depot until more than an hour after other fire crews were alerted. The mock drill had the chemical plume moving north and northeast, along the Columbia River with Umatilla residents directly in its path.

Roxbury said Hermiston's dispatchers were not at blame for failing to call out the crews. Plans for the drill were formulated by the county's Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program, the federally funded program to prepare the area surrounding the depot for a possible accidental release of the deadly nerve agents stored at the depot.

"Nowhere in (dispatchers') roster did it say, 'Call the fire department at Umatilla,' " he said.

Roxbury said whoever was responsible for drafting the response plan simply left off the phone numbers for Umatilla and Stanfield crews. Roxbury didn't downplay the omission.

"I think it has monumental implications in terms of readiness," he said. "I'm stunned that this late in the game, we'd be having these kinds of problems."

Hermiston Police Chief Dan Coulombe again said his dispatchers followed the plan given to them by Umatilla County's emergency management team.

"My dispatchers were given an assignment to do, and they were successful in doing it," Coulombe said.

Lack of notification wasn't the only problem during Saturday's drill. Radio communication between Coulombe and his staff was halted when a microphone failed. And Hermiston Fire Chief Jim Stearns couldn't get the Decision Maker Radio System, a key piece of communication equipment, to operate.

Meg Capps, director for Umatilla County's emergency management, said the breakdown in the radio system wasn't a surprise. The county already is at work installing a new 450-megahertz system it hopes will prove more effective.

Moreover, Capps said she is the one at fault for not getting all the players on the call list.

"That's my responsibility, and I let it fall through the cracks," Capps said.

Still, Capps said, despite the glitches, Saturday's drill was the best training exercise thus far.

"We had excellent performance at the decon sites and in the medical community," Capps said.

Performance standards for the medical community have been revamped since the last training exercise in May 2000.

Chris Brown, program director for the state's emergency preparedness crew, said previous performance standards were unrealistic.

"We tweaked the performance standards because if you failed one piece, you failed the whole measure," Brown said. However, he insisted tweaking those standards "did not lower the bar."

Stanfield Fire Chief Jim Whelan took the day in stride.

"We strive real hard and spend a lot of money to make sure these things are ready to go, but things happen we have no control over," he said. "What happened Saturday probably will never happen again, but there will be something else that doesn't go the way it's supposed to. That's what we're all about -- adapt and overcome."

 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.