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Terrorist attack: Sunday drill has flashes of reality
It was a drill.
It had its goals and lessons to be learned -- improve communications and enhance cooperation.
It had its flashes of reality and intensity -- a real loss of power and an honest-to-goodness severe weather warning.
And it had its moments of fun -- "He wants what? A goat?!"
Red Willow County Emergency Management staged a terrorist attack and take-over at McCook Regional Airport Sunday morning to help prepare emergency responders for the possibility of the real thing. Lessons learned from individual pieces of the training scenario -- such as command post organization, hazardous materials response, decontamination -- can be invaluable in any emergency situation.
In drill coordinator Bud Keenportz' imagination, terrorists flew into the McCook airport on a commercial flight, to meet up with fellow terrorists posing as airport employees. Together they would hold hostages until their demands were met: Remove all American troops from Iraq and, "Give us one goat." Oh, and the hostage-taker very politely thanked officers for moving their SWAT team member away from the airport chain-link fence.
Terrorists "killed" a hostage in the hangar and another in the terminal, and threw another onto the tarmac outside the airplane. "Is he dead, or alive?" They traded a pregnant female -- "in active labor" -- for donuts and "untampered water."
The negotiator said, "Promise them any d--- thing they want."
And change the subject -- "keep 'em talking, but distract them," she said -- when they demanded media coverage -- not from the McCook newspaper, but from the "local television station." Which McCook does not have.
Did the woman "in active labor" walk through the yellow liquid spilled from overturned chemical drums labeled "TOXIC"? Who else would contaminate an ambulance, and ambulance crews? Who else would have to go through decon before entering the hospital emergency room for treatment?
In the meantime -- in real time -- an ambulance crew is needed for a real medical emergency and transport, and radio communications are cut when a transformer goes out on the west side of McCook.
Officials are keeping a close eye on the real weather -- a storm front is moving in from the southwest, carrying heavy rain and the possibility of hail. A cold gusty wind from the northwest keeps flags flying straight, their edges snapping sharply.
In a much-condensed time frame -- real passengers will be coming to the airport about noon to board a real flight -- negotiations break down, a SWAT team rushes the plane, terrorists give up and hostages are released.
Coordinators were im-pressed. "I think we learned quite a lot," said Keenportz.
Dave Reisen, an emergency training officer with the Nebraska Emergency Manage-ment Agency, said, "It was an outstanding exercise. Exercises are done to learn, to get better from the mistakes we make and identify gaps in the process."
McCook Police Chief Ike Brown called the drill, "a good learning experience," testing first responders' rapid response capabilities. Brown also said his department "cut corners on personnel for the drill," which would not happen in a real situation. "You can't cut corners, and not get in a bind," he said, adding that there was not enough staff or overtime money to play the scenario to its full reality and time frame.
McCook Fire Chief Marc Harpham said the drill "tested our communications system," especially when they lost communications for real with the lost transformer. "We did well," he said.
Contamination and decontamination are serious concerns, Harpham said. "We will not send personnel in until a scene is safe and secure. We will not put our folks in harm's way," he said.
Harpham said that mutual aid from neighboring communities would have to be called in to help at the scene and/or to cover McCook while McCook's vehicles and personnel were involved on a scene.
Mark Cullinan, a special agent in the FBI office in North Platte, told first responders that in a real situation, some FBI personnel would be half-a-state away. "You'd have to handle it on your own until our resources got here," Cullinan said.
Cullinan made suggestions for a more streamlined incident command center (ICC), recommending that each agency have only one representative at the ICC. Each agency would then have a "runner" who would carry communiqués from the ICC to the agency's staging location. "Too many people at the incident command is distracting and counter-production," Cullinan said.
Red Willow County Sheriff Gene Mahon echoed Cullinan's comments about the command center -- "too many people milling around."
And he said in a real-life situation, responders would need a bigger radio cache, to replace radios not working.
Dari Olson, safety director at Community Hospital of McCook, said that the hospital had "an awesome response" from its staff." She added, however, "The drill was disappointing for us," because victims did not arrive at the hospital according to the schedule outlined in the drill. Olson suggested better communication among coordinators.
She also said the hospital and ambulance personnel will need to work on decontamination procedures at the hospital.
Mark Graf, of the Southwest Nebraska Public Health Department, said the drill was valuable in identifying resources that the health department can provide in an emergency.
Sgt. Ed Borer, emergency specialist at the Nebraska Department of Corrections Work Ethic Camp in McCook, said the WEC appreciated the opportunity to play along, providing services -- such as the negotiators -- that can help McCook and other Southwest Nebraska communities.
Mark Robertson, another emergency training officer with NEMA, said that frustrations within a big scenario -- communications, decon, incident command center organization -- can provide the impetus for smaller training sessions. "If you didn't meet some of your goals today, work on little bites that didn't work," he said, suggesting individual table top drills and time line exercises.
Jim Bogner, a spokesman for the Transportation Safety Administration, suggested that every agency become familiar with the airport layout and have maps of the buildings and runways. He also encouraged coordinating training with tenants at the airport.
Reisen said the drill was an excellent opportunity to foster relationships among all the agencies that responded. "Build on the things that went right," he said, "and work on the little pieces that didn't."
Agencies involved in the drill, supplemented by a host of volunteers, were: Red Willow County Sheriff's Department and Emergency Management, McCook Police Department and McCook Fire and Rescue, Nebraska State Patrol and its SWAT team and bomb squad, Red Willow Western Rural Fire Department and its hazardous materials response team, the Nebraska Department of Corrections of Lincoln and York and its Work Ethic Camp of McCook, City of McCook, Community Hospital of McCook, the FBI, TSA, Southwest Nebraska Public Health Department, Furnas County Emergency Manage-ment, McCook Regional Airport and Mesa/US Air Airlines, Red Willow Aviation, First Baptist Church, CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and NEMA of Lincoln.