EMERGENCY RESPONSE/Train-wreck drill prepares agencies for disaster
At high noon on Oct. 19, 2002, a cargo train carrying hazardous chemicals collided with a commuter train in Framingham, Mass. The wreck resulted in a chemical spill, mass casualties and the release of a white powdery substance carried by a passenger. That was the scenario established for the emergency response drill organized by Framingham’s Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) last fall. The drill called on public safety agencies and government leaders to test the community’s resources for emergency response and to practice their skills in reacting to large-scale disasters.
Framingham is a town of 67,000 residents located 20 miles west of Boston. The town sees large volumes of highway traffic on the Massachusetts Turnpike as well as rail traffic from Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) commuter trains and freight trains operated by CSX. Because of the large volumes of chemicals that move through the town daily on the highway and railroads, the town’s LEPC has worked to ensure the safe storage, use and transportation of hazardous materials in the community. The 12-member LEPC consists of leaders from public safety agencies, local government, industry, health care and education. Since 1999, the LEPC members have met to discuss how they would respond to a variety of disasters, and they have conducted role-playing exercises to obtain full certification from the State Emergency Response Committee.
The idea to conduct a full-scale drill was inspired by MBTA, which had asked the Framingham Fire Department to participate in a public safety film. The Fire Department, as part of the LEPC, saw the film as an opportunity to meet the requirements of the LEPC certification as long as hazardous materials could be incorporated into the drill. The LEPC developed the train wreck scenario to simulate mass casualties, hazardous materials and a biological agent so that many public agencies could practice their emergency response skills. The LEPC invited representatives from the locally based Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and the Washington, D.C.-based Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to evaluate the response activities.
As scheduled, the drill began at noon on Oct. 19. Nurses from local hospitals and high school students acted as passengers on the trains and wore makeup to appear like they were critically wounded. Firefighters stabilized injured passengers on the trains, and ambulances carried them to area hospitals. Meanwhile, the chemical spill from the freight train was contained by Department of Public Works employees, including some who were called in from home to assist.
Approximately four hours later, everyone involved in the drill assembled in the auditorium of a nearby high school to review what had happened. MEMA and FEMA representatives led a discussion about what went well and what went poorly during the drill. “We got very high marks for our drill,” says Deputy Fire Chief John McGuigan, who was the incident commander for the event. “Unfortunately, there were mistakes made, and we have learned from them. If you do a drill, and it goes off perfectly, you really don’t accomplish a whole lot.”
A few days after the simulated train wreck, the LEPC set up a decontamination tent at a local hospital to practice responding to the release of a biological agent. Volunteers were sent through the 30-foot-long tent that contained showers and a conveyor belt for patients on stretchers before they entered the hospital’s emergency ward. Although the LEPC did not practice the decontamination procedure during the train wreck drill, the MBTA spliced the two events together for the public safety film to appear as if they occurred on the same day.
Framingham is planning to conduct another full-scale drill to involve some public agencies that did not participate in the train wreck drill. “We were heavily involved with the ambulance service, the police department, the MBTA, DPW and the fire department, but there are a lot of members of the committee that we didn’t get to utilize: our ham radio operators, our bus transportation people [and] shelters,” McGuigan says. “Now that we’ve done a full-scale drill, people in the community who weren’t involved really want to have a part in the next drill. It’s very encouraging.”
