Friday, Oct. 4

 

ESDA exercise asks, and answers, important safety questions

[OCT. 4, 2002]  Most people ask themselves, once in a while, "What would I do if something really terrible happened?"

Members of the Emergency Services and Disaster Agency ask themselves that question often. It’s part of their job. And when they ask the questions, they have to come up with answers, usually fast.

As part of their training, state and federal Emergency Management Agencies mandate regular exercises that simulate some kind of local emergency. One of these simulations, called a tabletop exercise, took place on Sunday in the lower level of the Logan County Safety Complex on Pekin Street.

The 52 emergency responders gathered without knowing what kind of situation they would be asked to cope with. Soon-to-be-retiring Illinois Emergency Management Agency Region Seven Coordinator Pat Keane designed the exercise. He said he was going to make it a tough one.

 


[Photos by Jan Youngquist]
[Pat Keane]

"This will be a real disaster. You can survive it, but you can’t beat it," he told them.

So, at approximately 12:45 p.m. on a pleasant September Sunday, a 727 Air Freight jet plane with a crew of three and 12,000 gallons of fuel on board crashed into downtown Lincoln. Part of its cargo was liquid oxygen canisters, which would become an accelerant for the fire.

The "crash" occurred in one room, where a large tabletop layout showed Lincoln streets and buildings from Sangamon to Kankakee and from Pekin to Pulaski streets. This room became the Incident Command Center, with representatives of various fire, rescue and law enforcement systems gathered around the table directing the operations of their crews. Mark Miller, Lincoln City assistant fire chief, was first on the scene in command.

In another room, various local agencies set up an Emergency Operations Center, where representatives of fire and rescue services, police, health care systems, local government, and a disaster intelligence team worked to get the on-site team the help they needed, protect Lincoln residents and keep track of what was happening. Terry Storer, assistant director of ESDA, was in command there.

 


[Emergency Operations Center]

In still another room, radio dispatchers and amateur radio operators were getting the word out to other agencies.

The plane came down north of Sangamon, and the crash scattered pieces of the burning plane throughout the area. Apartments in the vicinity were in flames immediately, along with Marketplace Electric. Flames also engulfed Lincoln Junior High School and the Methodist Church.

Firefighters from Lincoln City were soon on the scene, followed by Lincoln Rural firefighters. Buildings were evacuated whenever possible and injured people transported to Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital.

Not long after the crash, the roof of Lincoln Junior High School started to collapse. Fortunately it was Sunday and school was not in session, but firefighters feared for those who might still be in the area churches, especially the Methodist Church. Its roof, too, was about to go.

 

The workers at the scene called for reinforcements. They needed more ambulances and more fire suppression units.

Help came from the neighboring fire departments in New Holland, Mount Pulaski and Hartsburg, but because the exercise was being conducted in "real time," that help didn’t arrive immediately. Eventually 13 fire departments were called in, including those from Springfield and Bloomington.

 


[Map of downtown Lincoln used in Emergency Operations Center]

Paramedics had local ambulances on the scene quickly, but they also had to wait for more ambulances from outlying areas and for the helicopters that would airlift burn victims to Springfield hospitals. A triage area for the injured was set up near Central School.

Lincoln Police Department and the Logan County Sheriff’s Department activated all off-duty personnel.

At least a dozen buildings were soon heavily involved. Fires that had been put out reignited, engulfing six blocks of downtown Lincoln.

The choice of where to focus efforts was asked again and again, "What are the greatest health and safety needs at this time?"

The Methodist Church would clearly be totally destroyed, along with the junior high school. Vehicles were on fire, and victims were on the ground.

 

[to top of second column in this article]

The Fricke-Calvert-Schrader Funeral Home and Pete’s Hardware on Logan Street were soon gone, along with all of the stores and apartments fronting Sangamon Street between Broadway and Pulaski.

To make the exercise as realistic as possible, toy trucks and ambulances were moved into the positions they would have taken if the disaster had been real. As more and more buildings began burning, they were labeled with markers showing red flames. Plumes of smoke (paper on sticks) went up.

 


[Tabletop Lincoln:  Debris and smoke cover the downtown area.]

In spite of the toys on the table, the mood in the Command Center remained serious. Tension grew as firefighters and paramedics waited for the help they needed. The crew in the Operations Center were also tense, busy keeping track of the action and working out the strategy to cope with the unforeseen disaster.

Firefighters evaluated what they thought could be saved, checking the wind direction to see which way the fire would spread. They were concerned that plumes of smoke were moving toward the hospital, which was rapidly filling with the injured.

The Illinois Central railroad line was closed shortly after the plane crashed, and later all Interstate 55 exits into Lincoln and state highways 121 and 10 through Lincoln were closed.

A news release reported that ALMH was at maximum capacity and a medical shelter had been set up at Lincoln Community High School, where Logan County Health Department staff and Red Cross volunteers were on-site to provide medical care.

A sheltering and information center was also set up at Logan Lanes on Fifth Street. Friends and relatives searching for loved ones were directed to this center.

 

The sewage treatment plant was overwhelmed with water from the firefighting effort and had to go on bypass, so Lincoln residents were asked to restrict water use. Land-based telephone lines were out as well.

By the time firefighters had begun to get the fire under control, at least 30 bodies had been found and at least 50 of the wounded had been transported to other hospitals. Two firefighters had been seriously injured and were hospitalized.

When the exercise ended, a little more than two hours later, the emergency responders gathered back together as a group for a couple more hours in the Crisis Management Center to review the exercise and evaluate their performance. Two observers from IEMA were also evaluating the exercise and will be sending their written reports to the local ESDA soon.

Many crew members had suggestions about ways to improve the operation. Better lines of communication and more personnel were needed, some said. Headsets for emergency personnel, direct phone lines to department heads, maps and global positioning systems, more participation by local officials, and a brand-new role, a team to focus on what would be happening in the future, were suggested.

"Now we know where we have to go," Dan Fulscher, ESDA director, said at the end of the discussion.

 


[Debriefing after the mock emergency]

Fulscher thanked all those who participated, which included Lincoln City and Lincoln Rural Fire Protection Districts, Phoenix Fire Department of Mount Pulaski, Armington Fire Department, Logan County Health Department, Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital, Logan Paramedic Association, Central Illinois Economic Development Corporation, Lincoln Police Department, Logan County Sheriff’s Mounted Auxiliary Police, Logan County Local Emergency Planning Committee, ESDA and LEPC Public Information Team, Lincoln Street and Alley Department, Mount Pulaski Street Department, Logan County Mounted Search and Rescue Team, AES/CILCO, and the American Red Cross.

When the exercise ended, emergency responders headed home, glad to drive through downtown Lincoln and see that everything looked just the way it had four hours ago, before the plane crash.

[Joan Crabb]

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