Chemical depot holds final drill

This story was published Wed, May 8, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON -- Sitting on the floor in teacher Amy Stull's first-grade class, 6-year-old Caitlynn Barton read: "She kicks. She screams. She wants to smash the world to smithereens! PABAM!"

Moments later, at 2:45 p.m., Desert View Elementary School Principal Mark Mulvihill announced a safety drill.

"Attention staff. This is a shelter in place," he said.

The message: Disaster has struck the Umatilla Chemical Depot, and a plume of mustard gas, sarin or VX agent has escaped into the atmosphere. But Tuesday was only a test, a final test of the region's readiness before the Army begins tests of incinerating the depot's 3,717 tons chemical agent later this month.

Outside the school, a mother juggled cookies with a handful of helium balloons as she struggled to open the school doors. But Caitlynn and the other students didn't notice. They were too busy making a beeline for the cafeteria, their safe room.

Hundreds of people from throughout Benton, Umatilla and Morrow counties participated in Tuesday's drill. The annual event is staged to help prepare the community. And the emergency personnel's response to this final exercise will determine if Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber believes the community is ready in the event of an accident at the depot. Results of the drill will be released Friday.

More than 100 federal and state officials from other depot sites around the nation offered their expertise as evaluators and players in the drill. About 600 people participated in the drill. The bulk of those were volunteers.

Troy and Ann Johnson weren't official players. They were just a couple of parents watching their daughter's youth soccer game at Hermiston's Butte Park when the sirens sounded about 5:15 p.m.

The siren, barely audible on the field, sounded shortly after the Hermiston and Pendleton girls prepared to play. As the referee held the ball, Ann Johnson said, "Oh, they're testing the sirens again. I don't have a clue what they are saying out here."

Troy Johnson added, "A lot of people out here aren't going to have a clue."

He was right. The din of traffic and kids screaming and dogs barking all but drowned out the warning system meant to alert people in a depot accident.

"They definitely need more sirens," Ann Johnson said.

But Ken Franz and the staff at Good Shepherd Medical Center treated the mock drill as if it were real.

An emergency call came in almost immediately warning Franz, the hospital's director of emergency management, of an accident at the depot.

The disaster unfolded this way: A bee sting rattled a depot forklift driver, who then careened toward the door of a storage igloo, where chemical agent is kept. The driver dumped a pallet of M55 rockets of sarin, two of which detonated. East winds of 20 miles per hour sent the agent straight toward the hospital.

Hospital staffers activated their overpressurization system, which keeps the poisonous vapors out of the building. Then they waited. In past drills, communication between emergency operations center and with the hospital has been inconsistent and sparse. This time, the whole scenario went off without much of a hitch, Franz said.

A decontamination unit was set up in the hospital parking lot, and workers donned protective suits to direct traffic and assist the half-dozen kids who were serving as victims of the incident.

"Where's your wristband?" one emergency room nurse shouted at a victim.

Victims are not allowed in the hospital until they've been decontaminated. Once victims have been hosed down, they get a blue wristband slapped on. It's a sign to the hospital staff that the victims are clean of lethal nerve agent.

The only glitch was that three victims walked into the hospital without being treated at the decontamination site.

"Our people didn't know they were victims," Franz said.

But overall, he was pleased with the drill.

Things also went well at the Hermiston Safety Center. Hermiston Fire Chief Jim Stearns got direct briefings from Lt. Col. Fred Pellissier, depot commander, via satellite television. And Stearns watched the movement of the chemical plume monitor screen near him.

However, he couldn't pinpoint the tail end of that plume, and apparently neither could the Army.

"We're not getting an update on that plume, and we're two hours into this incident," Stearns said at 6:50 p.m.

Then, Stearns received word that an armed and dangerous man was on the loose in Irrigon. Oregon State Police could not respond without first determining if the area was clear of chemical agents. Stearns dispatched one of the mobile monitoring trucks to check on the air quality.

And, directing the event from the Umatilla County Emergency Operations Center via satellite, Pendleton Fire Chief John Fowler called for a briefing. Fowler asked Pellissier if he should start evacuating folks from the areas around the depot.

Pellissier said it was Fowler's call.

"We're still trying to verify if there's any further contamination," Pellissier said.

Fowler said he wasn't prepared to evacuate people yet, but he'd likely recommend that they come out of their safe rooms.

Nearby one evaluator shook her head and smiled.

"Did you see these guys practice this before? They really have a much better idea of what they're supposed to be doing now. This looks like a real event."

 

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