emergency response exercise to be held in Portland
Eileen Sullivan. October 3, 2007. Questions Raised on Terror Exercise. the Associated Press. Found online at http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jgWlwQU6xnhKvkzTDNTioV_ABuzAD8S1T1RG0
I know the conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this one, just like they did with the one earlier this year. Here's the deal (emphasis of course is mine):
This year's TOPOFF will build on lessons learned from previous exercises, according to the Homeland Security Department, which runs the program. The agency said the Oct. 15-19 exercise would be "the largest and most comprehensive" to date.According to an internal department briefing of the coming exercise obtained by AP, a dirty bomb will go off at a Cabras power plant in Guam; another dirty bomb will explode on the Steel Bridge in Portland, Ore., impacting major transportation systems, and a third dirty bomb will explode at the intersection of busy routes 101 and 202 near Phoenix.
Now, I didn't notice anything untoward in the last exercises, but I got to ask: why Portland? why us? This is the second terrorism exercise in less than a year. Doesn't it seem odd that we'd be targeted twice in one year?
So I have to ask, is it just because we're Little Beirut? Just because we've had the largest anti-Iraqi war protests in the nation? Just because we don't participate in the Joint Terrorism Task Force? Or is it because everyone here has three lives like the CPA who does ecstatic dance and studies oil painting with a maestro? Just curious.
UPDATE: Check out the comments for Inger's, which has a lot of background info about the various emergency preparedness actions that have been going on in town. It's really very cool. And I was totally wrong -- we're not being punished. We asked for it. Really...
filled under grumble grumble grumble
October 4, 2007 |
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I thought I read yesterday on PortlandOnline that our dirty bomb will be going off at Portland International Raceway. Intersting.
it was a link to a Portland Tribune article, so it may or may not be correct:
http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=170337
At our last neighborhood meeting some dude from the city came by for a Q&A re TOPOFF. Apparently the city asked to participate in this excercise a number of years ago
He also said that most of activity will be centered around PRI as they are constructing a mock-up of the city there for the event.
Official blah blah blah here...
http://www.portlandonline.com/mayor/index.cfm?c=eeihb
Preface: I am not a government employee; I am a volunteer for one of the organizations who will be activated during this exercise, the Neighborhood Emergency Team. We are a group composed of your neighbors and friends - people who care about preparing their community for emergencies. It's an amazing group, and I'm happy to be part of it.
Portland was chosen as the site of this exercise because the Portland Office of Emergency Management asked to be chosen. POEM and its peers in the five-county area work to have an action plan for any type of emergency that may come our way, ranging from a hazardous tanker truck jack-knifed on I-5 to an air traffic accident at the Port of Portland to the flooding of the Willamette River to an ice storm that cuts power and heat for thousands.
A plan, untested, is still just a rough draft. TOPOFF allows the local and regional governments to practice working together in a crisis, and to work out the structural and communications bugs then, so that when a disaster really does happen, they have less learning to do. It's the same concept as practicing scales on the piano to build muscle memory in your hands before you can even think about playing a song well. We expect that we'll make mistakes, but frankly, I'd rather make a mistake during a drill than make that same mistake when human beings are really counting on us.
So: why the emphasis on terrorism? Because it's a federal show, run with federal money, and the feds are more concerned with terrorist threats than they are with flooding rivers or jack-knifed trucks.
Why the second drill in a year? Because it's being run by a different organization. The military did the first one, to my understanding. Nobody I know in any of the organizations involved in TOPOFF was involved in the other drill.
Oh, and by the way, I just want to make it clear for everyone out there - there will NOT BE AN ACTUAL DIRTY BOMB. THIS IS A SIMULATION ONLY. I cannot say that enough. Neither can you, in case you meet anyone who has questions about that.
I'm presenting this information to the best of my knowledge and hope that it explains things a bit! If you're interested in volunteering to be a "victim" for the exercise, I know they need lots of help - you can get more information at T4Volunteers.com. You can also go to the PDX Prepared website and sign up for an upcoming NET training if you'd like to be part of the organization.