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CSEPP TRAINING EXERCISE WILL SIMULATE EMERGENCY

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Saturday, February 4, 2006 9:48 PM CST

The Pine Bluff Arsenal and the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program will be conducting an exercise Wednesday to simulate an emergency scenario involving chemical weapons at the arsenal.

Wayne Norton, public information officer for the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management, said sirens and tone-alert radios will be sounded with an exercise message in the affected zones during the exercise.

Participants will not know which zones will be included in the three-hour exercise until that day, he said, but off-post soundings are expected.

“(The sirens) are initially sounded by the arsenal as they would be in the case of a real event,” Norton said. “The Jefferson County OEM will then issue two additional soundings in the affected zones only in 12-minute intervals.”

Grant County’s OEM will do the same thing after Jefferson County is finished.

“They’re going to be sounded a total of five times that morning,” Norton said.

Tone alert radios will be set off by the Arsenal with an exercise message in the affected zones. They will only be sounded one time.

“This is a federally-mandated exercise,” said Carole Newton, CSEPP public affairs officer. “The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army use the exercise each year to assess the preparedness of all the chemical weapons storage sites.”

Agencies that will be participating include the Arsenal, the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, FEMA, the state Department of Health and Human Services and the 10 counties in the CSEPP program: Jefferson, Grant, Saline, Pulaski, Lonoke, Prairie, Arkansas, Lincoln, Cleveland and Dallas. Newton added that several area fire departments routinely participate to test extensive CSEPP training done every year.

An estimated 200 to 300 responders, evaluators, observers and controllers will be on hand.

She said at this point participants only know that the scenario “will include the chemical weapons in the chemical storage area.”

Norton said Jefferson Regional Medical Center will participate again this year, and that the Highway 15 Volunteer Fire Department will set up a portable decontamination unit there.

An emergency operations center in the basement of the Jefferson County Courthouse will be activated. Various people who would respond in a real event will report to the center, including White Hall Mayor James “Jitters” Morgan, Pine Bluff Mayor Carl Redus Jr., Redfield Mayor Ron Tucker, Jefferson County Judge Jack Jones, Sheriff Boe Fontaine, representatives of the American Red Cross and the White Hall School District.

“Those people will be there handling whatever (mock) situations arise,” Norton said.

Volunteers from several agencies also will report to the Joint Information Center.

This year’s exercise will not include the opening of a reception center, as in years past, or use of the shelter that is already open at the Pine Bluff Convention Center.

“The organizations that would have handled it got practice during the (Hurricane) Katrina emergency,” Norton said.

Newton said this year will be the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, that the media will be allowed to access each area participating in the exercise, with the exception of the actual chemical weapons storage site.

“Every year we learn something new that we can improve on,” Mayor Morgan of White Hall said of the annual exercise.

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