HomeMy WebLinkAbout1977 08-03 Maplewood holds up under test bombing REVIEW Page 6A Wed., Aug. 3, 1977 THE REVIEW 41/4--D.--1-7
Maplewood
by Rob Schabert The president had appeared on TV and
ordered evacuation of all major U.S.
Atomic bombs peppered the nation last cities, Mottaz explained, and that's why
week in a full-scale nuclear attack. the people who handle the E.O.C. were
In Maplewood, heads of the public called to alert.
service departments packed into a small At seven o'clock there is an air burst
room in the basement of the City Hall and over Arden Hills, and fires are breaking
worked feverishly with one another. out in Northeast Maplewood.The game is
Property damage jumped above $10 on. The city council and mayor met and
million,but the group had held the death declared a state of emergency, and the
toll to nine,and in two hours had cleaned problems began shuffling into the
everything up.Nobody even heard a siren operations room.
wail. "The big brass are all in one spot to
Actually,it was a game.A very serious make decisions," said Kemmerer of the
game in which drastic lessons were idea behind an E.O.C. "Usually local
learned by important people.But it was a governments don't work together, but
game just the same. lives and property depend on how well
The two-hour drill last Wednesday was these people can work together, and how
designed to test the Maplewood well coordinated their system is.
Emergency Operations Center (E.O.C.) "Usually with an emergency the heads
and the people who man it. The test, an of the departments want to be out fighting
Emergency Operations Simulation the fire, or whatever, but this way they
(E.O.S.) took place completely in the are all brought together and can be
basement of the City Hall and involved reached easier by each other for making
the Mayor, Burton Murdock, the City major decisions.
Council, heads of the Fire, Police, "This teaches the different depart-
Engineering, Radiological Defense and ments to work together," he said. "It
Shelter Departments and several helpers teaches them what equipment the other
who ran and wrote messages. departments have. In fact it shows them
Many towns throughout the nation now sometimes what equipment they have.
have E.O.C.'s — a center where the Sometimes they don'tealize what they
decision makers will gather in case of any have until they look into their books."
emergency,natural or man-made,and be "In normal days of operation," said
able to work together in solving any Mottaz, while the crisis picked up in the
crisis. operations room, "the police go one way,
To test their effectiveness, two men the fire department goes the other way
from Training Consultants, a firm in and so on. They never really work
Michigan, work with local executives in together. Here they have to work
designing a problem. For six weeks Al together, to ask for assistance and to
Kemmerer and the assistants from the learn to set priorities."
service departments thought up problems A report came in that the Gladstone fire
to throw at the E.O.C. operations room hall had collapsed,piling rubble on top of
during the supposed nuclear attack. the fire equipment and knocking them out
A few minutes before 7 p.m.Wednesday of action.A few minutes later fire chief Al
night, Cliff Mottaz, the Civil Defense Schadt ordered all equipment in the other
Director for Maplewood briefed the stations out of the buildings,and turned to
gathering of the rules of this game. the head of the engineering department to
"International tension has increased ask for assistance.
dramatically between the world's The E.O.S. program began in 1968 in
superpowers in the past few months," he West Frankfurt, Ill. where the first tests
told them. Enemy movement along the were formulated. There was federal,
U.S. coast, coupled with pullout from all state and local backing in the program,
of the enemy's major towns were ominous including 50 percent matching funds from
implications of a nuclear attack. the national government.
Tied in with the Defense Civil
CANOE Preparedness Agency,the E.O.S.must be
nuclear-attack oriented if federal funds
RENTAL are to be used in the development of the
local E.O.C.The test is designed around a
17' ALUMINUM nuclear attack,with problems stemming
in every direction that might come up in
$6.00 DAY any emergency situation.
$30.00 WEEK "If an E.O.C.has the capability to cope
with the worst possible emergency, a
LARRY'S LIVE BAIT nuclear attack," said Kemmerer, "they
should have the capability to cope with
& SPORTING GOODS any lesser emergency."
White Bear at Co.Rd. C Before last September, Training
777-1731---- Open 7 Days Consultants handled $800,000 worth of
up under test bombing
__________
f
contracts in a six state region, and em- . f�A ,�''
ployed 30 people. Now it's been cut to � z ``',
$60,000 and two people.
"The program has been cut to the `= .
bone," said Kemmerer who is one of the
two left running the tests. "It's a shame ;'
because this is really practical,it's one of
the useful things to have in a community.
These people could be doing this next
week."
Kemmerer left Thursday for Albert Lea
where he will spend the next six weeks
planning an E.O.S. for Freeborn County.
Several members of that county E.O.C. :
were on hand Wednesday to watch what
happened. a
A few years ago Kemmerer held an '
E.O.S. in Illinois, and it was a tornado 41t �'`
which the •E.O.C. had to cope with. They ' ,a
a
learned their business. ,•
"An Amtrack train derailed about three
months after we did the tests, and they
handled it beautifully," said Kemmerer.
"This train derailed way out in the middle
of nowhere,but in five minutes there were
state helicopters on the way, and in 10
minutes they had help."
A terrific sense of urgency developed in
the small operations room, as more iv `
emergency reports flowed in.Against one
wall a huge blackboard contained two
dozen or more small crisis — each one
requiring a decision, some equipment,
some manpower.Next to the board was a
map of Maplewood, with tiny red flags
pinned to the locations of the crisis. Of
course they were scattered from one edge
to the other, making the solutions
tougher. LITTLE RED FLAGS begin to dot a map of Maplewood as Mary Kay Mottaz plots where each crisis
A pumping station cut the water supply is located during simulation.
on one end of town;snipers were firing ate
firemen; a railroad bridge collapsed, '
blocking the evacuating citizens; people x
were looting, Maplewood Mall was
burning. Each crisis came on a sheet of
a er,was delivered to the rightperson.
PP g
That person had to inform certain other
people and start some action. "4,1
A phone would ring, breaking into the
already noisy air like a dart. Each ring '
brought worse news. Occasionally a k r 4'.<
woman would stand up and report " * x _'
property damage and loss of life figures to
that point. The figures were climbing. e
Larry Cude,a fireman and police reserve, .'° , . ,
sat at a desk in another room and handed ��� ' �,� �, :.e r
the prelaid problems out every minute. # `
A month and a half ago the problems ., �
were begun. Kemmerer worked with the
assistant fire chief,assistant police chief, ,,:. ��, `'
and many other people in writing a series
of crisis unique to the Maplewood area. ,, 0' �� -'
During the drill, these people answer
calls from the operations room, and
carry out the requests and the decisions
But not immediately. First they are to
give the people in the operations room a
little grief over the phone.
"They give as much grief as I can get ;� A, A', 3
'
them hyped up to give." explained
Kemmerer. For instance, the 1 ' FIRE CHIEF AL SCHADT looks on as assistant police chief DeDnis Cusick gives an order during a( ,
available ambulance is dispatched, and tense moment in the atomic crisis.
on its run it gets a flat tire. A problem on
m o c w w o a c H s n .n, � � '� c •v A sS
o "'o o � � Q �� o g$ w OC ��a� .: .'o 'z ° eo°:. � co co g �;g °o y co § f c. o
Ili
tio � ocoo � � ��'��=—R.� o7oaW—L'Il S� c=o ° m2' W,Im8c�g : = ..,
oo� o' •y ^ x .yccocD� „�„ co y, cr. _-sov ocy n' � K � c co < � „ .a � F o � w
O J QQ O o g. A O .J. O w O = " n Ott =• g d' i7 O 04 O co O m C O.j ' = (D O
mocyo >` wo•< coo'a (Dm¢.ob c'w o Ecasvccm r 0.:. = : 2cows co
c.. O'.b s . w O g 5 N < . O 5 . O n ;S V C S F, s O ,,, -0.:. = $.' 2 %- s-
O O (5D . _r' C, C C cD
w ,,, � (A. -.o p, � m m ' ;;.; wcDa� .. " `°sRom , as .00 &s . N
� = aomo' c9, , P,'• c,tima 8 ,1' aouP, � a ego ° moi oho y • ti
c7o °`° �" ,gJ,, yo oo Ch 2^ FsR , n cDa. O4 oO ? r° n
��
' o' m= o'� „' r.„, .A o O o 2 Q.A 5 ,0 a F y `-' .8 c�D s 7 z g > n, v Ai
aY�o = 8-5E"'-'
� �. �y cow � v' � to a eD eo n � �• co ti �`< � .•. < n � _ �'
pY oo . w – -� F,,- ; ',. g a.'vcoo v' p7 •' a, ,,, ,,,, ,„ :,4
o ;p � ' '- F.', ,
'5 g m
mac $ c.v co w o rs ."-."- `)
o 8i,, 5 w o � � w cD O ^ c e `a
� � w = 8.ob 7, P c'L l'' �cD `•• Q- mom S � n ^ o� w 8 r• w � 9 = -
pct wo w mgy °: 1oo• c_ mom g so E io � eD �.
Fl...-i—
Ho @ Ea o o � � o c . , o. o � r ° � ' '..1:'="' wva � o 'f < X
-i w A' ,9 < n c"o " w m A coo O coo +
cD O"! y .meq VJ
< CD '1',,:, ,„..,__.,-= �< '7 r0•h fD ry 04 cD c.z"-. ^f '� ..
z t A
. , 0.. Q.
o
M..
� mp
�'' �.w fD 1, a; a I'''' r
CD y y c-w S = n 'mss a '
to = -4 cn
ram01hI „�
n Cil
2. d
y
a
wf-
oy
tit '''' *
a ,
rotm
a o
o am
it , V
m
FL
o
4
11,hT
o
f9• �., -fix V
rA '- .. ,.
4-4
m