By Pam Sohn
Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
Copyright 2006 Chattanooga Publishing Company
Nearly 500 people across Tennessee spent their Wednesday practicing for a high-stakes nuclear leak drill planned here in a month.
The preparation is important for public safety, but officials say it also is important to the Tennessee Valley Authority and local electric customers.
“We must pass in order for Sequoyah (Nuclear Plant) to keep its license,” said Don Allen, director of Hamilton County’s Office of Emergency Services.
Mr. Allen and some 30 emergency planners from area hospitals, the county health department, the sheriff’s office and other local services watched their computer monitors and three electronic wall screens in the county’s version of a disaster war room.
Across town in a large TVA conference room, another group of about 60 people from state and federal agencies watched similar monitors as a make-believe drill scenario of a leak resulting in a release of radiation into neighborhoods near the plant played out. In offices across the state, about 400 state workers were reeled into the drill, as well, said Amy Maxwell, who also works with Hamilton County Emergency Management.
In each room — and in similar rooms at Sequoyah, in Nashville and in other pertinent locations — emergency responders from groups such as the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency conferred. Some would break away to consult programs on their laptop computers, then they would reconvene in small groups and as a whole.
Mr. Allen said this is the first year TEMA has used Web-based Emergency Operations Center software, which Hamilton County has been using for several years. Early in the day, TEMA workers realized they had a communications problem with Nashville.
“That’s what we’re here for now, to find out these problems and fix them before the real test or emergency,” Mr. Allen said. “It’s a kink we’ll get worked out.”
Mr. Allen said Hurricane Katrina offered lessons to the emergency workers that renewed already-careful efforts.
“I watched that unfold as everyone else did,” he said of Katrina’s aftermath. “What amazed me was the fact that Geraldo (Rivera) could get in and get a line up to broadcast, but nobody could get water and food in. We vowed not to let that ever happen here. And we won’t.”
Next year the local emergency nuclear practice drill and test will involve Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, Mr. Allen said.