Practice hopefully makes perfect for first responders

Clark County

Discussion

December 7, 2009

Clark County emergency workers gather to practice disaster scenario

By BRADEN LAMMERS The News and Tribune Mon Dec 07, 2009, 08:22 PM EST

CLARKSVILLE — A fire at the former Colgate-Palmolive Co. plant released sulfuric gas and required the evacuation of nearly 3 square miles in a scenario presented last week by the Clark County Local Emergency Planning Committee.

Members of local law enforcement, fire officials, emergency medical personnel and the health department were on hand as the group discussed and planned out how each would respond if such an incident were to occur.

The exercise is part of an annual requirement for the committee.

“The [committee] is empowered to conduct one of three types of exercises — table-top, functional or full-scale,” said Bob Rogge, chairman of the local emergency planning committee.

Thursday’s scenario was a table-top exercise, led by Chris Brawner, training and exercise coordinator from district nine of the Indiana State Department of Public Health, Preparedness and Emergency Response.

“Obviously, this gives emergency responders the ability to test their protocol, to test our procedures that we put in the plan,” Rogge said. “We can put a plan together that touches on a lot of the peripheries and a lot of [help] for [emergency personnel], but they have their protocols they have to follow.

“It gives them the opportunity to say, ‘OK this really worked or we need to change this.’”

In the scenario, a fire was reported at the former Colgate plant at about 11 p.m. From the initial response, the staged event escalates to unknown gas leaking from a container on-site, and includes one severely burned individual.

From there, the hypothetical situation diverges into a sulfuric gas leak requiring the evacuation of the surrounding area, road closures and cooperation with Louisville first-responder teams, leading to the eventual containment early the next morning.

The discussion is to facilitate a plan and a realistic timeline if such an event were to happen.

“Taking time and devoting it specifically to get the Jeffersonville Police Department to talk to the Clarksville Police Department to talk to the Clarksville Fire Department that type of thing definitely is of value,” Rogge said.

Beyond discussion, sometimes a streamlining of the response plan comes out of the exercises.

“You talk it out and you see where some issues could arise, where issues are [and] how quickly things actually end up happening,” Brawner said.

Even when a plan often can be improved upon, the state leaves the response effort up to the county on how to best handle the situation.

“Sometimes you come up with it, you can be doing it, and realize this could be done differently, but they’ve worked together so long, a lot of those details they’ve worked out,” Brawner said.

For those attending, preparedness is the ultimate value.

“You don’t always have an accident like this occur ... and you don’t want something like that to occur and all of the sudden you have to figure it out,” Brawner said.