Depot drill responders lauded by evaluator

This story was published Thu, Jan 31, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON -- Despite some problems, emergency responders earned high marks for their actions in Saturday's drill simulating the release of deadly chemical agents from the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

"It was really good performance. Enough to make any parent proud," said Dave McFerren, project manager for Innovative Emergency Management, the Salt Lake City company hired to provide independent review of federal, state and county emergency readiness should a release of deadly chemical occur.

McFerren presented his remarks to members of the Governor's Executive Review Panel at Oregon National Guard Armory in Hermiston on Wednesday.

McFerren's positive review comes on the heels of Saturday's glaring communication failures when the fire departments of Umatilla and Stanfield, Good Shepherd Health Care System in Hermiston and Pioneer Memorial Hospital in Heppner did not receive official notification of the drill until more than an hour after the Army alerted outlying communities.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber has said he will not sign off on the incineration project until he's confident the citizens of nearby communities are safe. The review panel hopes to make a recommendation to the governor in May before to trial burns at the incinerator.

Still, McFerren said drill participants had a lot to feel good about.

"We did have some glitches," McFerren said. "Certainly there are some issues with the official notification."

He also noted problems with the communication equipment. Umatilla County's emergency management team is working on upgrading emergency VHF radios to a 450-megahertz system. Team members hope to have that working before the Army starts burning chemical agents in February 2003.

In the meantime, they are relying on a variety of communication systems, including enhanced VHF radios, cell phones, video teleconferencing, and the Decision Maker radio system.

McFerren said evaluators were pleased with the benefits of the teleconferencing component. The system allowed people in Boardman, Heppner, Pendleton, Hermiston and the Umatilla Chemical Depot to get briefings from Lt. Col. Fred Pellissier, depot commander.

"It was very valuable," McFerren said.

Additionally, Benton County emergency responders are hoping to plug into the television system.

"They are not linked to Oregon yet, but they will be," McFerren said.

Emergency responders were evaluated based upon a list of 11 performance measures that they failed in a drill in May 2000. They passed them all this time.

Specifically, evaluators studied the Army's ability to meet notification goals, the efficiency of first responders to set up their decontamination units and the ability of various hospital staffs to treat volunteers acting as victims.

McFerren said this is the first time the Army has met its performance standard of notifying the depot's neighbors of an potential accident in a timely fashion. The Army is required to notify neighbors within 10 minutes of the incident. Depot officials did it in five.

Overall, McFerren said the drill indicated the emergency crews are on a "steady slope of improvement."

Umatilla County Commissioner Dennis Doherty said he was "really proud of our people."

However, Doherty also said he felt badly about the lack of notification for Umatilla Fire Department.

"(Umatilla Fire Chief) Mike Roxbury has been the poster child for our operation. I feel very badly abut what happened," Doherty said.

He urged the review panel to not get sidetracked by problems.

"The Army intends to start surrogate burns on May 25. Our job now is to put them in position to do that," he said.

Neither Roxbury nor Stanfield Fire Chief Jim Whelan attended the meeting.

 

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