"Dirty Bomb" Drill Begins; So Do Yawns

The Department of Homeland Security is running the Top Officials (TOPOFF) 4 exercise this week. But don't ask any questions about it.

The TOPOFF 4 Full-Scale Exercise will involve more than 15,000 participants representing federal, state, territorial, and local entities. For the first time, a U.S. Territory, Guam, will participate in the TOPOFF series, providing an opportunity to practice coordinated prevention and response activities between the continental U.S. and a U.S. territory. At the Federal level, exercise play will be marked by the coordinated participation of multiple agencies and departments. For example, in addition to response, DHS will be exercising prevention through its Terrorism Prevention Exercise Program (TPEP).

In the weeks leading up to the full-scale exercise, law enforcement and intelligence community players will work the information gathering, intelligence analysis, and information sharing capabilities that help to thwart terrorist activities. In addition, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will mobilize around emerging public health issues related to a radiological emergency, and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) will run concurrent exercises to address global terror threats.

Yes, it's the deadly and much-feared "dirty bomb," being brought from overseas terrorist camps to a city near you. Well, at least at Portland, Oregon, and Phoenix, Arizona, today. The 94th WMD Civil Support Team will be participating in Guam and the 102nd WMD CST in Oregon will be in action. I received an email from a participant in the Portland field exercise. He was less than impressed.

Because we have had a lot of rain this morning, including a downpour right when the simulated explosion of a dirty bomb took place, we are being told the contamination is much less and some planned drills will not occur. I guess they think the rain washed down all the patients at the scene, so we aren't running the decontam tent, nor are we receiving the simulated patients as expected. Around town there are a few extra patrols sitting in their vehicles trying to stay dry. A few extra coasties motoring on the river. Otherwise not a whole hell of a lot going on. Anyway, maybe sometime you might comment in your blog about climate factors, CBRN and terrorism. Are we safer here in Portland than in Phoenix because we get more rain? How useful are these exercises if parts of the drill are rained out? Seems to me if these folks were serious they wouldn't let a little rain get in the way.

Yeah a lot of focus around here is on the radiation issue. I kind of think there is some silly stuff going on because it is not as if we never deal with traumatic injuries, or burns, or psychological distress. Or even radiation for that matter. We have research biomedical scientists that occasionally contaminate themselves in the lab, folks who spend too much time in the sun, other stuff. I was expecting to test volume capacity and management under stressed conditions and it was really a bunch of stuff we already knew. We already do plenty of decon dealing with folks pulled out of meth kitchens. I am finding this a bunch of hype that is somehow supposed to scare us or something.

Say it isn't so! In my experience, the decon drills are always dreaded, since they take so much time and resources to execute correctly. The easier thing is to just show up with the gear, do a few individuals, and declare victory. Always gives good photo shots for the newspapers. The intent of TOPOFF is more focused on state-fed communications than actual exercises, and what you sometimes see in these events is a... how should I say this? A suspension of realism. No mass casualties, controlled information.

I think the reason why my correspondent didn't see a big emphasis on decon drills was because the focus of this year's TOPOFF
wasn't on resource management, but rather on coordination between agencies and media relations. Except, as this Time article notes, there were no real reporters or real worried public masses with whom to interface.

*"We have not yet made that mental leap," says Jim Kish, who oversees TOPOFF
planning as the director of the National Integration Center, when asked about the idea of using real reporters. "That's not to say we won't consider it. But doing it this way gives us a little bit more control.
We're trying to create a learning environment." *

TOPOFF exercises happen every two years, ever since 1998 when
Congress, concerned about preparing for something like the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack, mandated that the government hold them. So far, TOPOFFs have included a plague attack in Denver, a chemical weapons attack in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, another plague in Chicago, a dirty bomb in Seattle (accompanied by a cyber attack), a simultaneous mustard-gas release and bomb in New London, Connecticut, and yet another plague attack in New Jersey. But aside from the miscommunication and tribalism among local, state and federal officials before, during and after the events, none of them have really been all that realistic. Says Lee Clarke, a disaster expert who observed some of the 2005 TOPOFF exercise at Rutgers University: "What we saw was just theater. It was just for show. If people really think this is preparing them for a big event, it's a false sense of security."

Eight years into these exercises, the feds are still nervous about taking these drills to the next level. We can't open up these exercises to the media, because "the terrorists" might learn how we prepare for and respond to terrorist incidents. So it's just better that we keep all the doors and windows shut. Is our elected officials learning yet?