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Responders prepare for the worst
By Ralph Pokorny
Nevada Daily Mail
Vernon County's annual disaster drill was conducted yesterday evening, with a dramatic scenario to which area emergency crews were to respond.
This year's scenario was complex. In it, shortly after 1 p.m., Wednesday, responders were to behave as though the north side of the Vernon County Courthouse was severely damaged, and about 30 people pretended to be killed and injured in the mock disaster, when a pickup truck driven by the fictitious James Burnbomb, of rural Nevada, exploded near the north courthouse door killing the fictitious driver instantly.
Many other factors and some background information was included in the scenario, further complicating the situation.
In a nutshell, that was the scenario Gary Herstein, Nevada's director of public safety, dreamed up for Vernon County's annual emergency drill which actually started about 6:30 Wednesday evening on the Nevada Square.
The required drill provides all of the area emergency response agencies an opportunity to test their abilities to respond to a disaster and to gain valuable training before they are called on to respond to a real disaster.
Planning for this drill began about six weeks ago and at one point seemed to be in doubt because both the city of Nevada and the Vernon County Sheriff's Office were short on money to cover needed overtime.
Two weeks ago a solution to the overtime issue was identified and last week the final scenario was developed during a walk-through of the scene on Thursday by Herstein, Vernon County Sheriff Ron Peckman, Vernon County Ambulance director James McKenzie and Warren Schooley, the drill coordinator for the Vernon County Local Emergency Planning Committee, which sponsors the annual drill.
While the Local Emergency Planning Committee will review the drill at their monthly meeting on Sept. 20, Schooley said there were a few lessons that he'd already learned from the exercise.
"If this really happened, we don't have the resources to control the scene," he said, noting that with all of the ways on and off the Square, a lot of equipment and manpower would be needed to seal it off.
"We would have to wait for the Highway Patrol to get here to be able to seal off the area," he said.
One other thing he learned while developing the plan to blow up the courthouse with the mock truck bomb, is that the local law enforcement agencies do not have the expertise to handle this type of scene and all they could do in a real situation is to cordon off the area of the explosion until agents from the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agency arrived, he said.
Schooley said that unlike in the past, this year they had trouble finding people to play victims for the drill and it would not have been possible without the help of area boy scout and girl scout troops.
He said that one thing they needed this time were some more adult victims.
The mock disaster scene, which included thick smoke in parts of the courthouse gave local fire and ambulance personnel a chance to test their search and rescue skills to find the numerous victims scattered through the three floors of the dimly lighted building that was littered with furniture and cardboard boxes to simulate the real thing.
Members of the Vernon County Ambulance District used the drill to practice their triage skills that they use to rapidly prioritize the order in which victims receive assistance.
To make the scene more realistic, the victims were made up to simulate a variety of injuries from minor cuts and bruises to major trauma, such as being impaled with debris from the explosion.
In addition to the Vernon County Sheriff's Office, the ambulance district and Nevada fire and police departments, the Richards and Compton Junction fire departments and the Nevada Regional Medical Center also took part in the drill.