Earthquake, tsunami drill to be held today in Clallam County
By Tom Callis, Peninsula Daily News
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The Clallam County Emergency Management Division, in partnership with about 40 local government agencies and organizations, will hold a countywide earthquake and tsunami drill today from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
The Diamond Point siren will signal the beginning of the drill.
The siren will sound again when the drill is over.
The premise of the drill is that an 8.0 earthquake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, located off the northwest Pacific Coast, triggers a tsunami that causes widespread damage to infrastructure and cripples the ability of emergency crews to respond.
Though law enforcement, medical, fire, and tribal agencies from around the county will participate, most of the visible action will take place in Port Angeles and Sequim, with a table-top exercise in Forks.
In Port Angeles, 30 mock victims, made up of Port Angeles High School and Peninsula College students, will be painted with fake blood to simulate injuries.
The Peninsula College gym will serve as a "point of distribution site" for the "victims," where the Clallam County Medical Reserve Corps will simulate providing them with inoculations.
After which, the "victims" will be driven in two Clallam Transit buses to either a shelter at the Elks Club in Sequim — managed by the Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the American Red Cross — or to Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles.
Hospital staff will simulate processing the "victims" either for treatment or for airlift to a Seattle area hospital.
The extent of the injury each "victim" is supposed to have will determine if the person is taken to the Red Cross shelter or OMC.
Natural disaster drill
Jamye Wisecup, Clallam County emergency management program coordinator, said the purpose of the drill is to test the ability of the county's Incident Command System to handle a natural disaster.
The system sets up a command structure, depending on the incident, to respond to an emergency.
At the county's emergency operations center in the basement of the courthouse, the incident commander is assisted by representatives of the agencies and organizations involved in responding to the incident.
During today's drill, Bob Martin, Clallam County emergency manager, will act as the incident commander.
Though the locations have been selected ahead of time, how the simulated events will play out has been largely kept secret.
Surprises
Wisecup said a design team in the Emergency Operations Center will call out "injects," and the responding agency, whether police, fire or medical, has to figure out how to respond.
They would be required to figure out a solution, but would not need to act it out.
Possible scenarios could include having to figure out how to transport injured people with major routes of access being blocked.
Or for the Coast Guard, a scenario may include figuring out how to assist communities hit by the tsunami.
Rhonda Curry, Olympic Medical Center spokesperson, said nurses will meet the "victims" in the hospital lobby, where they will be processed based on the extent of their supposed injuries.
Hospital staff will go through the motions and procedures that would be needed to treat each person.
That will likely include ensuring that the necessary medical staff are available to handle the injury and enough beds are available.
Available rooms will be used to hold the mock victims, Curry said, and none of the regular hospital operations will be affected.
"The drill will be minimally noticeable to the general public," she said.
"Everything will go on as usual."
Though no staff member is excused from the drill, Curry said only those who are not attending to a patient will be used.
Curry said the hospital has been mostly left in the dark about the drill in order to keep them on their toes.
"We don't do a lot of decision-making beforehand," she said.
"We try to handle it as if it's in real time."
Curry said the Olympic Medical Center tries to do its own drills once a year.
On June 9, for instance, hospital staff had a drill on handling victims of a hazardous materials contamination of Port Angeles High School.
West End center
Forks Police Chief Mike Powell said he will act as emergency manager for the West End during the drill.
Representatives from Fire District No. 1, the Red Cross, Clallam County Hospital District No. 1, and a amateur radio operator will join Powell in the Forks City Council chambers.
Powell said their role is to respond to the "injects" from the county Emergency Operations Center.
An example, Powell said, could be that they would have to figure out how to assist low-land communities hit by the tsunami, such as nearby LaPush.
Powell said he hopes the drill improves the West End's ability to respond to an emergency.
"We hope to find areas that we are weak in, so we can strengthen those," he said.
"Its not to show you can do it perfectly."
Other locations for the drill include:
Radio communication
Dan McKeen, Port Angeles fire chief, said one of the main goals of the Fire Department will be to test its Opscan radio system.
During an emergency, the radio system will allow emergency response crews from around the county to communicate on one frequency.
"If you don't share the same frequency, you are unable to talk with other responders," he said.
Wisecup said the county also will test its ability to communicate with amateur radio operators, who are useful when other communication systems are inoperable.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: September 30. 2008 9:00PM