Dress rehearsal for a nuclear emergencyJun 20 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Cathy Grimes Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)
Emergency personnel from Newport News filled the bleachers of Hines Middle School's gymnasium Wednesday morning, waiting for an evacuation order related to a nuclear incident at Surry Power Station. There was no incident. Nor were any evacuations taking place. The group was participating in an emergency exercise meant to hone their skills and build "muscle memory" associated with monitoring and decontaminating evacuees and emergency crews potentially exposed to radiation, said Fire Chief Scott Liebold. "The primary goal is preparedness. None of us do this every day." The exercise was assessed by Virginia Department of Emergency Management and Federal Emergency Management Agency evaluators, who quizzed responders throughout the event, then gave on-the-spot critiques of their work. FEMA Technical Hazard Specialist Martin Vyenielo said his team was ensuring Newport News was prepared to handle an evacuation, checking equipment, people and vehicles for contamination. Three zones in the north end of the city are within 10 miles of the Surry Power Station, a nuclear plant built in 1973 across the James River from the city. Every two years the cities and counties near the plant hold emergency drills and other exercises simulating a nuclear incident at the reactor. In the event of an evacuation order related to a nuclear accident, the city must alert about 70,000 people, more than a third of its total population, and tell them to leave their homes in those neighborhoods and head to three designated emergency assessment centers, said Fire Captain Ed Holloway, a radiation officer during the drill. Hines is one of the three centers. The two others are Warwick High School and Gildersleeve Middle School. The assembled crew at Hines included city, fire and police department personnel as well as emergency shelter crews and Department of Health staff. Each had a role in the process of determining whether city residents were contaminated. They also would check emergency staff sent into the affected areas to gauge the level of contamination. The scanning process involves waiting in lines, both in vehicles and on foot. Every car must be checked with a portal monitor that looks like an open gate, and with hand-held monitors. If nuclear contamination is found, the car is washed by crews in protective clothing, then rechecked. Crews will wash a car twice, but if it still registers radioactivity, it is quarantined. People go through a similar process. They walk through a scanner similar to a metal detector that measures radiation exposure. If someone is contaminated, the person is taken to a locker room, where he or she showers, then is scanned again. Like vehicles, people wash twice, and if they still register high levels of exposure, they are taken to Riverside Medical Center or another hospital for treatment. After people clear the scanners and are declared free of contamination, they register inside Hines. The health department gives them potassium iodine tablets and the people are free to head either to an emergency shelter or another site away from the contamination zone. Liebold said that unlike many emergencies, a nuclear incident likely would unfold slowly, giving the emergency crews time to ramp up their assessment centers and emergency shelters and deploy police and fire personnel to the areas in the danger zone. "We would have 12 to 24 hours to prepare, we hope," he said, adding that the emergency team would be in constant contact with the power station to monitor danger. During Wednesday's exercise, about a dozen people were scanned for radiation, and two were determined to be contaminated. Vyenielo, the FEMA hazard specialist, closely watched the simulated decontamination process for one victim, quizzing the team as they worked. When the victim was declared free of contamination, his hand was stamped, a red-ink imprint declaring him "clean." Vyenielo also assessed a team checking an emergency vehicle. They popped the hood, checked the air filter, then carefully ran counters over the grill, the tires, the intakes and the exhaust. Then they opened the doors and checked inside. The verdict: the air filter was contaminated. The vehicle was sent to "the dirty lot." "Nicely done," Vyenielo said to the inspection team. Wednesday's exercise was part of a series of nuclear incident reaction drills associated with the Virginia Operations Plan Exercise, a preparedness event that simulates a nuclear emergency. The exercises are run every other year in Hampton Roads. On July 16, Newport News will join Williamsburg and Surry, Isle of Wight, York and James City counties in a full-scale simulation of a nuclear contamination event. http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=29039775 |