Homeland security drill tests communications, emergency plans
A few years ago, the scenario for this week's homeland security drill might have seemed farfetched. Not today. The imaginary bomb that detonated in Seattle on May 12 sending a plume of radiological material across the city, followed by an attack with biological weapons 2,000 miles away in Chicago, seemed entirely plausible. With an all-too-real terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia occurring just hours after the exercise began and the unsolved 2001 anthrax attacks a recent memory, few Americans need to be convinced they are vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
Reducing that vulnerability and mitigating the damage from attacks was the objective of the TOPOFF 2 security exercise conducted this week in Seattle and Chicago. The exercise, the second of its kind, involved hundreds of law enforcement officials, fire fighters, medical personnel and other first responders along with top officials at dozens of state and federal agencies- hence the name of the exercise.
TOPOFF 2 is in many ways similar to the kind of training exercises the military has conducted for decades as part of its "train as you fight" philosophy. With homeland security now seen as an indispensable element of national security, officials at all levels of government have come to believe such training is necessary and the Homeland Security Department has begun to institutionalize similar training requirements.
Despite criticism that the exercise scenario was largely known to participants in advance-thus eliminating much of the realism that makes such training valuable-officials say they were able to test critical communications links and procedures and practice vital response plans, such as those for providing emergency medical care and distributing massive quantities of prophylactic drugs in a short period of time.
At a conference room-turned-command center on the sixth floor of the Health and Human Services headquarters building in Washington on Wednesday, federal officials were clearly pleased with recent improvements they've made to their response capabilities. With real-time communications links to command centers in Seattle and Chicago and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Washington officials were able to monitor and react to developments across the country.
"We haven't really been surprised by anything," HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson told reporters in a briefing Wednesday. Federal health officials tracked the imaginary plague attacks in Chicago in the shadow of the very real potential health consequences of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the epidemic that has cut a swath across much of Asia and parts of Canada. As Thompson spoke to reporters, a large computer screen in the command center tracked the progress of SARS.
In bracing for a widespread outbreak of SARS, hospitals and health care workers have become better prepared for other diseases that might affect large numbers of people, whether those diseases are naturally occurring or the result of terrorism, Thompson said. In addition, national and international communication systems and procedures are being tested every day.
Even local officials not directly involved in TOPOFF 2 benefited from the training exercise. In the Washington area on May 12, emergency response teams used the scenario presented in TOPOFF 2 for a separate communications drill.
Within 40 minutes of hearing about the fictitious "dirty" bomb explosion in Seattle, representatives from 26 federal, state and private organizations arrived at the D.C. Emergency Operations Center on 14th Street in Northwest Washington for the local exercise.
Sitting behind flat screen computers in an eighth floor room, they monitored newscasts and intelligence reports for updates on Seattle events. As events unfolded on the West Coast, they contacted capital area first responders, operating under the District of Columbia's emergency response plan. At regular intervals, each organization provided an update to others in the room.
"We have the rush hour plan in effect," a representative from the D.C. Department of Transportation announced over a microphone, shortly after the Homeland Security Department "raised" the threat level to "red" as part of the drill. The U.S. Park Police reported sending a helicopter to patrol the National Mall area and the D.C. Hotel Association estimated the number of tourists in the city.
During the May 12 drill, participants appeared calm and organized. That's exactly as they should have looked, said L. Ralph Jones Jr., deputy director for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. Virginia and Maryland emergency response agency teams participated in the drill by phone.
Repeated drills help first responders internalize emergency procedures so that they become almost routine, Jones said. It's hard to "mimic the adrenaline" that would kick in during a real terrorist attack, but exercises are still valuable tests of communications equipment and emergency contact lists, he added.
This particular capital area drill was only designed to test "connectivity" among various emergency response teams, said Peter LaPorte, director of the D.C. Emergency Management Agency. Participants all knew ahead of time that the drill would take place, he said. The capital area has also conducted unannounced drills and field exercises for first responders.
Local officials are still waiting to see reports from evaluators who watched Monday's drill, but according to Quentin Banks, a spokesman for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, state emergency workers communicated effectively with other regional organizations participating in the drill, as well as with the federal agencies involved.
Aside from a few relatively small glitches, Virginia teams also sent and received information with little trouble, Jones said. He added that state emergency workers are accustomed to working jointly with other organizations in the region, but said the drill was valuable, in that it "reaffirmed" communications linkages worked properly.
Some of the federal agencies that Virginia emergency workers communicate with on a regular basis, such as Federal Emergency Management Agency, are now part of the Homeland Security Department. But the move did not necessitate a large change in the state agency's communications plans, Jones said.
The state would still call many of the same federal workers in an emergency situation, he said. Some might just have new contact information or different bosses now.
"I'm very much in favor of exercises," Jones added. "They help us understand the process of getting information to each other and to the public."