Emergency exercise pushes responders, resources to the limit

Participating in the Saturday emergency exercise at South Putnam, firefighters remove a victim from a car involved in a mock hazardous materials accident.

A Saturday morning emergency exercise required local departments to step outside of their comfort zones and to imagine, then deal with, a worst-case scenario.

Imagine if you will an anhydrous ammonia spill in the immediate vicinity of a local high school. As if the hazardous material situation is not enough, the nearby presence of several hundred students makes things that much worse.

The public begins to fret as word spreads quickly. Putnam County 911 dispatch is besieged by calls. Relatives of students and accident victims try to make their way to the scene or to the hospital to find out what happened to family members.

And then one desperate man, unable to locate his daughter, walks into the hospital with a handgun, firing shots and taking hostages until he can get some answers.

Sound like the kind of thing that happens somewhere else? Local personnel were asked to envision it happening right here in Putnam County.

The activity organized by the Putnam County Emergency Management Agency and Local Emergency Planning Committee was three hours of intense training for fire, medical and law enforcement personnel on Saturday.

The exercise began at 8 a.m. with a call to Cloverdale and Greencastle fire departments, along with the Putnam County Sheriff's Department, of a semi tanker accident on U.S. 40 at South Putnam High School with the tanker ending up in the school lot.

Not only did responders deal with the anhydrous in the air, but with six victims of the crash, some of them trapped in their vehicles.

The school was placed on lockdown, but with citizens beginning to become aware of the situation, a shelter had to be activated as a place for emergency personnel to keep relatives informed of the situation.

The Citizens Emergency Response Team (CERT), the Red Cross and mental health personnel activated the shelter at Greencastle Christian Church, dealing with relatives who were beside themselves at times trying to obtain information.

Playing the part of an angry father, Rick McFadden takes a hostage at Putnam County Hospital on Saturday morning. The exercise, which started as a mock hazardous materials accident near South Putnam, quickly escalated as relatives tried to find information about accident victims and students.

However, the action reached its pinnacle at Putnam County Hospital, where local actor Rick McFadden played the part of a concerned father whose daughter was in the accident. Unable to find her and feeling like he was being lied to, the angry parent returned to his car, got a handgun and took hostages trying to find answers.

Putnam County Sheriff's Department deputies, negotiators and eventually the Emergency Response Team responded in full force attempt a peaceful resolution to the situation.

While a definitive evaluation of the exercise will be available at a later date, EMA Director Tom Helmer first of all said he was happy with the level of participation from the involved departments.

"I think we've got a good group of people in this county," Helmer said at the morning briefing. "This is just for practice. With the other incidents going on around the country, I appreciate everybody showing up."

Afterward, Helmer said there were some good points and some bugs to work out. The point of an exercise is to be ready when a real emergency occurs.

"I think it's a learning experience for everyone," Helmer said.

A team of evaluators from Putnam County and elsewhere were at each location, taking observations for what will become an after action report. This report will outline strengths and areas of improvement identified during the exercise.

From the report and an associated conference, an improvement plan can be formulated for the involved departments.