Drill tests regional disaster response

N. STONINGTON — Emergency responders suited up in space­man- like gear Saturday to wander through the hazy hallways of the Contract Chemical Manufacturing Co., looking for victims of a massive chemical spill.

Their encapsulating level-A hazmat suits were air-, liquid- and vapor-tight to protect them from what appeared to be an acid spill. The suits are cumbersome and hot, so each team of responders had only about 13 minutes to walk through the building, carry­ing extrication gear and a stretcher.

Grim-sounding stuff, only it wasn't true. There is no Contract Chemical Manufacturing Co., and there was no spill. It was a mock
disaster drill at the former Fisher Controls building, which tested the abilities of emergency responders in both Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Although emergency re­sponse units conduct reg­ular drills, Richard Morris of the Connecticut Inci­dent Management Team said it's the first large in­terstate drill in this area of the state in a long time. It brought together teams of fire, ambulance, police and other specialty units from local towns, the two states and the federal govern­ment.

Seven victims — actual­ly volunteer actors playing victims — walked out of the building and into the decontamination tent brought by the Westerly Fire Department. Three other victims pretended to be injured, and had to be rescued.

The tent was set up to accommodate victims whether they walked in on their own or were wheeled in. To be decon­taminated, a victim would have to remove all clothing and personal belongings like glasses and jewelry and place them in a bag for later decontamination.

Next, they walked into a shower area with both spray and mist. There was a portable heater to make the water a little more pleasant, said Chief David Sayles of the Westerly Fire Department, and the na­ture of the contaminant would determine what goes into the water. It might be soap, he said, or bleach, or just plain water.

Water for the decontam­ination tent is typically provided by the home fire department, he noted, and in this case it was North Stonington fire trucks fill­ing up the water tanks.

The last section con­tained kits with towels, disposable clothing, and antibacterial hand wipes. Although the tent was about 10 feet wide and 25 feet long, Sayles said it can compress into a four­foot- by-four-foot cube, and will set up in just min­utes.

"It's ideal," he said. "It's quiet, efficient. We've used it numerous times, and it's still in good shape."

Sayles said the depart­ment has about a dozen haz-mat technicians, but only three were at the drill. "We still have the town to protect," he noted.

And while the Westerly unit was there, the Kingston decontamination unit was backing up West­erly.

"The community's always covered," he said.

Outside the staging and decontamination area, oth­er actors were playing their parts in the disaster. For­mer WJAR-10 reporter Leslie Yeransian pretend­ed to interview an emer­gency responder, asking him about evacuations and what people should do. At the end, she asked a ques­tion she probably never asked before.

"So, what did you make up?" she asked with a big grin.

Nearby, the red, white and blue Rhode Island Emergency Management Mobile Command Center was parked on the road.

"I'm just here to deploy radios," said Paul Budzen­ski, who was stationed be­hind a desk in the modified recreational vehicle. He said he and Mike Walsh handled communications and logistics for the Rhode Island teams.

Among the electronic tools in the command cen­ter was WebEOC, crisis management software in which all requests and ac­tions are logged. It is avail­able to any authorized user, Budzenski said, from state workers to the pres­ident of the United States. Theoretically, he added, it could allow someone to monitor or even coordinate a disaster from a distant lo­cation.

"It's the coolest use of technology," he said.

Among those using We­bEOC on Saturday were those who staffed North Stonington's emergency operations center in New Town Hall. WebEOC was prominently displayed on a 46-inch computer monitor, and Emergency Manage­ment Director Phil Bau­mann kept his eye on it.

"It brings us light years into the future of commu­nication," he said.

He was joined by First Selectman Nicholas H. Mullane II and Marc Tate, who is in charge of infor­mation technology for the town, as well as Connecti­cut Homeland Security personnel Tony Scalora and Kevin McManus.

Mullane said they were keeping an eye on the town's emergency opera­tions manual to see what needs changing.

"The purpose of any drill is to test your system," he said, "and make the ap­propriate revisions."

The biggest potential problem Mullane could foresee was the lack of a generator for New Town Hall, he said. The elemen­tary school, which would be used as a shelter, and Old Town Hall each have a generator, but not the emergency operations cen­ter.

"That's the one deficien­cy," he said.