May 7, 2007

Getting ready for the worst

       If a nuclear attack hits an urban area such as Indianapolis, the Indiana National Guard wants to be prepared.  On Thursday, a 10-kiloton nuclear explosion will be simulated at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Jennings County.  Emergency responders and National Guard troops will run through different training scenarios amid plumes of smoke and piles of rubble, said spokeswoman Lt. Col. Deedra Thombleson.  The mock disaster will include simulations of casualties, damaged buildings, evacuations and contamination. The drill, called Vigilant Guard, will replicate a major terrorist attack in the United States.  The drill is part of Ardent Sentry, a Department of Homeland Security training exercise simulating disasters in Indiana, New England, Alaska and along the western U.S.-Canadian border.

         On Thursday, police, firefighters and emergency medical technicians from central Indiana will identify areas contaminated by radiation, quarantine those areas and treat hired civilians acting as victims.  High-tech training equipment will set off radiation detectors in a scenario designed to be as realistic as possible, Thombleson said.  More than 2,000 National Guard members from Indiana, Illinois and Ohio will set up perimeters and roadblocks. Specialized teams will rescue victims, move debris and decontaminate patients.

         The nine-day exercise hosted by the Indiana National Guard will test the troops as the first military responder to an emergency, according to the National Guard Bureau.  Guard members from Ohio and Illinois will travel to Indiana to test out a mutual-aid agreement in which governors can turn to other states for assistance in a crisis.

The agreement, which has been in place since 1996, resulted in Indiana National Guardsmen being sent to Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Thombleson said.  The units won't gather in advance so they can have realistic response times, she said.  Out-of-state troops will travel to Camp Atterbury to stage for their operations at Muscatatuck near North Vernon in Jennings County. Troops also will fly to Hulman Field in Terre Haute.  Emergency responders from the Indianapolis area will be set up in Jennings County to more closely reflect the distance they would travel to a terrorist attack in the city.

         Contractors will start preparing the 1,000-acre Muscatatuck site Tuesday, hauling in piles of debris and coordinating the civilians hired to act as victims.  The urban training center, which landed a $100 million U.S. Army investment in April, has 70 buildings totaling 850,000 square feet, one mile of underground tunnels and more than nine miles of roads, according to its Web site, www.mutc.org.  It previously was the site of the Muscatatuck State Development Center. The Indiana National Guard gained control of the land and buildings in July 2005.  "People are mowing their lawns out there (last) week in the calm before the storm," Thombleson said. "But (this) week chaos will break loose."  Other exercises are taking place in Rhode Island and Alaska, testing responses to a hurricane and terrorist attacks, the National Guard Bureau said.  See a related story HERE.  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)
 
   

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