Derailment exercise has agencies on track
Edmonds, other agencies work on emergency efforts
By Chris Fyall
Enterprise writer

It was a grisly scene at Shoreline's Saltwater Park, with blood-spattered spectators and the incessant drone of circling helicopters.

People were dead and dying. Emergency personnel were scrambling.

Thankfully, everybody was pretending at the Sept. 5 mock Sound Transit passenger train derailment designed to help area agencies practice emergency response.

"It is really good for us to practice so we know each other, know how to play together, and see how we would work," said Melanie Granfors, spokeswoman for the Shoreline Fire Department.

The pretend derailment happened on the county line, so agencies from all over responded. Edmonds and Shoreline's emergency management departments, as well as their police and fire departments were primary responders. Other King, Snohomish and Kitsap County fire and law enforcement agencies participated, and so did the Burlingon Northern Santa Fe railroad.

Exercises of this magnitude happen only every few years, officials said. "One of the big objectives was to see how the communication systems would work," said Sgt. Don Anderson, spokesman for the Edmonds police. "We were pretty satisfied with the way it went."

With so many agencies responding, there were lots of communication links to test. "We wanted to see if two jurisdictions and two different counties could work together on this scale," Granfors said. "Yes, we work together all the time, but not on this level."

Snohomish and King counties send helicopters with thermal imaging to help locate bodies.Multiple agencies sent boats to help rescue people from the water. Dozens of fire trucks and aid cars arrived to help in whichever way they could. The Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management set up a mobile trailer that sent its communications antenna high up into the air.

Setting up incident command, and the hierarchy for other decision making, was one of the most important steps, officials said. For this drill, Edmonds fire department's assistant fire chief Mark Correira was the incident commander.

But, in a disaster response situation, all agencies need to figure out what initiatives they can take -- and how to make sure the overall effort flows well. "That is the challenge," Granfors said. "Is fire the lead? Is police the lead? Is county the lead? Well. We all are."
 

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September 17, 2007