Army base plans for the worst with disaster simulation

It was a day of terror at the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, starting with a cyber attack, then a suspicious package, an explosion and a chemical spill.

Nobody was hurt -- it was all make believe.

Army regulations require every base to simulate a terrorist attack once a year, said Jeremiah Whitaker, a spokesman for the soldier systems center. The Natick base, where the Army conducts research and development for food, clothing, shelter and air drop materials for soldiers, went through such an exercise Friday.

The Natick police and fire departments, MetroWest Medical Center, National Guard Civil Support Team, the Massachusetts State Police bomb squad and the Federal Emergency Management Agency joined Department of Defense military police and staff.

"By working with the local community and state and federal agencies, we all get to exercise our capabilities and see if we need to improve our processes," Whitaker said.

In Natick, the exercise also fulfills state requirements for the Natick Police and Fire departments as well as MetroWest Medical Center. Police have to practice dealing with a local emergency, fire officials have to practice cleaning up hazardous materials, and MetroWest Medical Center has to practice its response to mass casualties, said Richard Polley, head of security for the center.

Police Chief Dennis Mannix and Town Administrator Martha White observed.

(<object width="425" height="350">

<param value="http://www.youtube.com/v/icuxrFMxk5k" name="movie" /> width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/icuxrFMxk5k"></embed> </object>For this year's event, Army officials evacuated the base's public affairs office after a report of a suspicious package surfaced.Later, in another exercise, an "explosion" caused havoc on the base, and the panic resulted in a "chemical spill" inside a test lab.Natick police and fire officials were on the scene first, and went into the building to assess the damage. There, Natick High School volunteers and Army personnel were lying in the hallways as if they were injured. A rescuer dressed in Hazmat gear joined the effort, and the victims were carried to a decontamination unit set up by FEMA workers from Maynard.The decontamination unit was divided into two lanes -- one for people heading to the hospital, another for those who weren't, said Thomas Spain, an officer with Maynard's Mobile Emergency Response Support/Federal Emergency Management Agency team.First, workers stripped the victims' clothes off, which removes 80 percent of the contamination, then sent them through a showering and rinse stage. Finally, the victims were given what's called a modesty cover."If this were a real-world event, I wouldn't know what the hazard is," Spain said. "I would work with the incident command post to find out what happened and they would tell me where to go."As support to the first responders, the FEMA team would take 25 minutes to arrive and 30 minutes to set up their gear, Spain said.After the victims were "decontaminated," they were sent to MetroWest Medical Center in Natick so the hospital could practice treating 20 casualties at once, Polley said.In previous years, the Army practiced dealing with a car bomb and nerve gas.<em>MetroWest Daily News writer Andrew J. Manuse can be reached at amanuse@cnc.com or 508-626-3964.