The five-year, post-Katrina program of major drills is aimed at improving the way local, state and federal agencies work with one another in natural and man-made disasters.

By Michael Gilbert
The News Tribune

TACOMA, Wash. — It's just after 4 p.m. when Maj. Gen. Tim Lowenberg, top general of the Washington National Guard and the state's senior homeland security official, gets the call at Camp Murray.

There's been an explosion near the Coleman Ferry Dock in downtown Seattle. A section of the Alaskan Way Viaduct has collapsed.

Even as Lowenberg is notifying the governor and extending an offer of help to the Seattle mayor, there comes word of a second blast. This time it's a chemical tanker truck, detonated at the site of the first explosion.

Coincidence? More likely a terrorist attack, timed to inflict widespread casualties among the police and firefighters at the scene.

Hard to imagine a nastier scenario for the six-day-long national emergency management exercise now under way at Camp Murray, Fort Lewis and other Northwest sites.

It's part of a five-year, post-Katrina program of major drills aimed at improving the way local, state and federal agencies -- particularly the state and federal military -- work with one another in natural and man-made disasters.

Washington was chosen for the exercise, in part, to help prepare the Northwest for the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia. The state took part in similar national exercises in 2003 and 2007.

Emergency managers in the Pacific Northwest already enjoy a "culture of collaboration," Lowenberg told about 100 military and civilian officials assembled for a senior leaders' workshop held Friday at Camp Murray as part of the exercise.

If something like Hurricane Katrina or 9/11 ever struck Western Washington, the people seated around the room would be the ones to direct the response.

Lowenberg said the exercise and training "will allow us all, I hope, to leave here today confident that we can say to citizens who are looking to us for leadership ... 'Count on us; depend on me.'"

But even flawless competence on their part, it was plain to officials Friday, might not be a match for some of the consequences of a disaster like the one playing out in the exercise.

"The more you dive in, the more you realize you have to dive in even farther," said Cindy Zehnder, chief of staff to Gov. Chris Gregoire and one of the participants.

For instance, in this simulated case, a toxic plume of methyl isocyanate -- the gas that killed at least 3,800 in the 1984 industrial accident at Bhopal, India -- lingers over much of downtown Seattle and First Hill. Perhaps 10 percent of the 130,000 people in the area may die.

Residents are told to "shelter in place" -- get to the upper floors of their buildings because the gas is heavier than air.

The area bordered by Interstate 90 to the University of Washington, and Elliott Bay to Lake Washington, becomes a no-go zone for all but emergency vehicles.

Four major hospitals, including Harborview Medical Center, the region's primary trauma facility, are in the hot zone. All the patients there before the blasts will have to be moved -- but where? Officials said the region has no way of handling that many patients all at once.

By the second day, likely all medical attention would be directed toward those sickened by the gas, leaving little to no care for other patients, said Dan Banks, an official with the state Department of Health.

And how do you evacuate a dense urban center like Seattle -- especially if it must take place quickly?

Dolph Diemont, an official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the region lacks a coordinated local, state and federal evacuation plan.

And where would everyone go?

"At what point would you take over the Tacoma Dome?" asked one official. The likely answer? Almost right away.

DON'T FORGET PETS

Evacuees would even demand shelter for their pets -- a potentially huge emotional issue. After Katrina, responders estimated that as many as 30 percent of evacuees there refused to leave their homes without their dogs or cats, said Tom Fletcher, a consultant who led one of Friday's workshops.

Roger Hieb of the state Emergency Management Division said that also was true in the floods that struck Lewis and Thurston counties last December.

"Many of our jurisdictions have been looking at that as a serious issue," Hieb said.

In the first hour after Thursday's simulated explosions, the Department of Homeland Security elevated the threat condition in Washington to red -- shutting down air and ground transportation. The Coast Guard mandated the same for maritime traffic.

The result: a stranglehold on the region's economy. No ships into and out of the ports. No flights. No trucks on the highways.

Lowenberg said planners here have to be prepared to ask the federal authorities to relax some of those restrictions if necessary.

"There's every possibility that bad judgment on the part of one or two people in Washington, D.C., despite the best intentions, could have a profound impact on all segments of our efforts here," he said.

Even in the first hours after the attacks, officials said they need to begin to think about recovery -- what they will need to do to quickly reopen transportation routes, to get the ports open again, to decide which trucks are the first to get moving again.

Kurt Hardin of the state Department of Emergency Management said planners from the start need to be thinking about how they're going to get people back to work and kids back in school.

Over the weekend and into Monday and Tuesday the exercise will test the working relationship between Washington's National Guard units and active-duty military commands that might be called in to deal with a disaster.

ACTIVE-DUTY UNITS WILL TAKE OVER

Initial response teams from the Washington Guard will give way to active-duty units working under the U.S. Northern Command -- the lead federal military command responsible for providing assistance to civilian authorities in emergencies.

Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command, and Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, and a slate of other senior U.S. military brass are in town to observe the event.

At Leschi Town, the urban training facility at Fort Lewis, Guard troops set up chemical decontamination centers Friday and prepared to "treat" an onslaught of "injured" role players.

The event is the annual training exercise for a 250-member Guard team of medical, communications and chemical decontamination troops that would be called out in such an emergency.

Copyright 2008 The News Tribune