Area response teams prepare for the worst

Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Local law enforcement officers discuss procedures that would be followed in the event of a disaster such as a terrorism-related explosion in rural Vernon County, during an exercise Tuesday night.

By Ben Holman

Nevada Daily Mail

What if an anti-government terrorist group set off an explosion in a barn in rural Vernon County that may have released an unknown chemical into the area? This was one mock scenario that the emergency response teams for our area had to discuss at a table top exercise last night.

Police, fire and emergency medical personnel from three counties were at the 3M clubhouse last night for the exercise, which was designed to evaluate our area's readiness to respond to a variety of emergency situations. The exercise was conducted by the Missouri Department of Public Safety with the help of the Titan Corporation, a consulting firm.

According to Allen Lehmen, MDPS state exercise officer, since the Sept. 11 attacks, our nation has had a heightened concern about terrorism and the Department of Homeland Security has provided funds to all the states to develop teams to respond to possible threats and incidents. There are 28 teams within Missouri that have been formed to meet this need; the local team encompasses a six county area, with the core of the team members coming from the emergency response departments of Vernon, Barton and Bates counties.

"We've gotten to a point where we want to evaluate ourselves and see where we want to go from here," said Lehmen. He said that the results of this exercise will be compiled with results from other exercises with groups around the state and be presented to the governor's office and then on to Washington. Lehmen said that these exercises will help identify what each team's specific needs are and help to draw federal dollars to supply those needs.

Last night's exercise involved three separate scenarios, one was a heightened alert level based off a credible threat, one was a notification and response of an incident, and the other was a response to an incident. For each scenario, the group was divided into four teams, a police team, a medical team, a fire team and an emergency management team. Each team had a period where they discussed what their role would be in such an event and the things that they needed to do. After the caucus period, the groups shared what they had discussed with the other teams.

Lehmen said that another major purpose of the exercise is to inform different emergency response entities of the procedures of others and to improve interagency communication. "A lot of times communication between different entities isn't that great. This gives each group an opportunity to understand what the others will be doing," he said.

The exercise also helps keep responders up to date on the procedures which will help them be prepared to respond to any emergency situation. "We're doing all we can to be prepared no matter how small or how large the community," said Lehmen.

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