Exercise lets emergency responders test their readiness

By Michelle L. Klampe and Tamara Koehler, Ventura County Star

August 7, 2004

Ventura County's emergency workers tested their response to a terrorist attack Friday as part of a national homeland security exercise.

The timely test comes as law enforcement agencies on the East Coast are on high alert for what Homeland Security officials have called credible new terror threats.

The local drill, held in Simi Valley near Oak Park, involved police, firefighters and other first responders from 22 federal, state and local agencies.

The scenario was a simulated freight-train derailment caused by a chemical explosion that produced a lethal gas vapor cloud. Hazardous materials crews also had to determine whether a white powder found at the scene was anthrax.

About 35 Boy Scouts played victims of the disaster, lying in a field of dirt and brush near overturned train cars. The scouts earned a Homeland Security merit badge for their participation.

The call came across police and fire radios just after 10 a.m. As firefighters from Simi Valley's Station 45 arrived, they quickly began assessing the scene.

"What happens if the wind changes? What happens if there's a secondary fire? Are there going to be evacuations? Do we need a road closure? They have to assess what do we do here," said Steve Reid, a California Highway Patrol officer and public information officer for the drill.

For more than three hours, emergency workers pretended the disaster was real -- evacuating the injured, determining there was no anthrax, and concluding the derailment was one of several simultaneous terrorist attacks.

The training helps individuals understand how to respond to a terrorist attack while also helping the various agencies learn how to work together. Next week, agencies will assess their response and pinpoint any weaknesses or problems.

"Doing it over and over again, it becomes more of a reaction instead of something you have to think about," said Jerry Bynum, a fire engineer with the Santa Paula Fire Department. "When you have all the agencies involved, all doing the same training, we all know how to respond together. It also allows us to see where our shortcomings are."

The drill is the second for Ventura County's first responders. Last year, a mock terrorist attack from the sea was staged in the Port of Hueneme. The two-pronged drill simulated a one-ton tank of chlorine gas exploding and a terrorist attack on a Navy frigate anchored in the port.

"The biggest benefit of these exercises is it brings people together who normally don't work together" but will have to if a terrorist attack occurred in the county, said Keith Mashburn, chief fire investigator with the Ventura County Fire Department.

Friday's drill was part of a nationwide exercise called Determined Promise that is coordinated by the United States Northern Command. The exercise is geared to test federal support of local and state agencies in the event of a nuclear, biological or chemical terrorist attack.

Several cities have participated this week in the national training exercise, including Los Angeles, where a radioactive "dirty" bomb simulation was staged in the Port of Los Angeles.

This is Determined Promise's third year, and the first time Ventura County has participated in the national exercise.