The Advertiser-Tribune

The Advertiser-Tribune



Had this been an actual emergency ...

By Zachary Petit



It’s about 6 p.m. Monday, and a potentially deadly crisis is beginning.

With dark clouds looming overhead, a tanker carrying chemicals swerves to avoid an accident at the intersection of SR 19 and US 224, springing a dangerous herbicide leak.

A drum of sulfuric acid also has been ruptured, and it now streams freely onto the pavement alongside the truck’s payload.

Compounding matters, two witnesses come to check on the truck’s unconscious driver and get splashed by chemicals, then hop in their vehicle and speed off to Mercy Hospital of Tiffin’s emergency room.

Later, a few more concerned citizens go to the driver’s aid and also become contaminated at the site.

The Advertiser-Tribune and other local media outlets didn’t immediately report the calamity. In fact, similar situations occur in Seneca County every year, and you probably never read or hear about them.

“It pretty much fell the way we had it planned,” Local Emergency Planning Committee Coordinator Dave Gross said. “I thought everything went really well.”

Fear not, for Gross isn’t an action-movie villain who orchestrates local calamities for his own nefarious delight.

In reality, it’s quite the opposite, as emergencies like Monday’s are initiated for the greater good: The LEPC sets up fake hazardous-materials drills to test their responses and cut their teeth just in case — knock on wood — the real thing ever happens.

Hopefully, you won’t ever hear about such a situation. After all, Gross says there haven’t been any major chemical spills locally.

But, if fate does cast a chemical shadow over your neighborhood in the future, having four children with mock burns sit idly in the rain while grown-ups play war games may not seem so crazy after all.



When chemicals attack

Gross says the basic purpose of the mandatory yearly scenarios is to test hazardous material responses, and Monday’s focused on the decontamination process and Bloomville and Republic’s forces.

The LEPC usually moves the drills around the county to give different departments the ability to participate, he says, and previous events have been held in locations from Attica to the cities of Tiffin and Fostoria, which are tested once about every four or five years.

Before this week, he says the last drill conducted was a tabletop scenario — a simulation where officials chat about the mock-disaster instead of physically acting it out — about a Bettsville train derailment and chemical spill last summer.

At the scene Monday, rain begins to fall on the young men playing victims as emergency forces dispatched from their various departments arrive and begin yelling at the “conscious” ones, asking what hurts, and receiving answers such as “neck” and “chest.”

Soon, a plethora of departments respond to the collaborative exercise, including Seneca County EMS and the Bloomville, Tiffin, Fostoria and Scipio-Republic fire squads. With diesel engines grumbling and radios chattering away, the disaster becomes very alive, and it grows even more so when responders donning the sterile haz-mat suits from “Outbreak” appear, complete with oxygen tanks and the associated Darth Vader breathing.

If it wasn’t for the scripts each victim keeps for responders, explaining things such as they’re “burned but can walk,” and the lack of an actual wrecked semi — instead, a much smaller tank simulates the nasty leak — someone stumbling upon the scene might assume the worst.

Also, Gross notes there’s a reason emergency vehicles aren’t using any of their trademark sirens right now.

“If you cause an accident when you’re doing a drill, it doesn’t look very good,” he says.

After using caution tape to quarantine different zones as “hot” (contaminated) and “cold” (the ideal place to be when a chemical spill happens — safely away from it), the teams begin to set up a “warm” location in between for decontamination. Once complete, it’s a gauntlet of gas-masked personnel and baby pools with a large, inflatable yellow tent at the end.

Forty-five minutes after the accident began, white-suited emergency personnel have been tending to all the children, and they now can escort the two with burned arms to the fully-erected decontamination zone. The worse-off victims such as the driver, however, later are carried to safety on stretchers.

Responders shower everyone emerging from the zone with hoses, and the victims are whisked through the tent — purchased by the county with Homeland Security funds and kept by the Fostoria Fire Department, Gross says — and eventually into ambulances.

Two Tiffin firefighters trained in the third tier of dealing with haz-mats then hit the scene in bulky red suits and cut the leaking truck’s valve, plug the drum spewing acid and enclose it in a larger container.

All the while, a handful of evaluators stand at attention, examining the incident as it plays out around them.

With nobody to guarantee you’ll never be sprayed in a baby pool by masked men and women who don’t want to touch whatever you just did, the question arises: How’d everyone do?



Report card

In Gross’ opinion, the verdict is pretty good: He says there was an excellent turnout and the responders meshed well together. Further, he says the evaluators felt the performance met or exceeded the expectations of the criteria, which took into account everything from whether appropriate agencies were alerted in a timely manner to whether a command post was established and clearly identified.

Gross agrees and commends drill participants, noting, however, that as a result of it, he has realized the decontamination process can be improved with a little more pre-planning.

“They did a very good job,” he says. “We learned some things that we need to be prepared for the next time. That’s the goal of a drill — to learn what you can do better.”

Discussing the issues, he says responders were surprised about how long it took to set up the decontamination lines, which also consumed more space than anticipated.

In the wake of the rainy exercise, he says officials also now know to have some warm clothing and blankets ready for the chilled people emerging from decontamination.

A debriefing followed the drill, Gross says, where officials and evaluators — including one stationed at Mercy Hospital to test the decontamination of the first victims who fled there — discussed their observations.

He notes the county won’t get credit for the “traffic and access control” section showing things such as road closures because it wasn’t easily observed, but adds the LEPC has two more drills to work on the hard-to-simulate category.

Seneca County Emergency Management Agency Director Dan Stahl ran dispatch for the simulation at the Emergency Operations Center that also broadcast weather situations and managed resources.

Alongside doling out some hands-on experience, he says the overall purpose of such events is to test the county’s emergency operations plan, and to pinpoint any weaknesses in it. Further, he says the drills are important to have, and he said he believes Monday’s will score well with Ohio EMA evaluators, who basically cross-reference the written plan with how well the county actually adheres to it.

“I thought everything went really well,” he says. “It was a terrific learning experience.”

Ohio EMA Public Affairs Branch Chief C.J. Couch says final reports typically are returned within 6-8 weeks, and adds counties are given the opportunity to correct mistakes if they received a low score for something.

Whether they’re spraying invisible chemicals off wide-eyed victims or standing by an ambulance, Couch says it’s important to realize all forces within the county are striving for the same common goal with the drills.

“They want to work on their system, (and) they’re concerned about their citizens,” he says. “They want to be ready for when the real situation occurs.”

So, knock on wood.

But, if it does happen, at least you know officials have cleaned those types of things up before. And, there also might be some warm security blankets for you now on the other side of that big, yellow tent away from the Darth Vader breathing.

Section: News Posted: 6/10/2007