More than 300 stage disaster drill

Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2002 | 9:46 a.m.

More than 300 "victims" who volunteered are expected to participate in one of Southern Nevada's largest disaster drills on Thursday at Cashman Convention Center.

The drill is part of the national domestic preparedness program, organized after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

The drill will include preparing emergency crews to respond to a terrorist attack.

After two years of planning, police, firefighters and emergency service crews will participate from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the disaster exercise, which is being conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

To avoid disrupting pedestrian traffic and drivers, large signs will be posted on Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue, advising passers-by that what they see is only an emergency exercise, not a disaster, Las Vegas Emergency Officer Tim McAndrew said.

City marshals and Metro Police officers will monitor and secure the area.

The city of Las Vegas, Clark County Emergency Planning and the Justice Department are coordinating the exercise, details of which are unavailable until the drill.

Emergency service agencies have secured $15,000 for support services through a Homeland Security grant. Every government and support agency in Southern Nevada is participating and the result is "staggering," McAndrew said. "The volunteerism going into this is unbelievable."

The city of Las Vegas is one of 120 cities nationwide to participate in such a drill, Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said.

All local hospitals and support agencies and groups such as the Clark County Coroner's Office, the County Health District and the American Red Cross are included in the drill.

The exercise will look at how emergency organizations communicate, help them practice crowd control at the scene, implement the Metropolitan Medical Response System, test hospitals on receiving large numbers of patients and practice informing the media and the public.

Since the entire exercise will take place within the Cashman Center, street traffic is not expected to be interrupted.

Similar disaster drills have been conducted at McCarran International Airport and by Clark County, County Emergency Coordinator Jim O'Brien said. In the past several years, the county has drilled emergency responders for an earthquake, a flash flood and a low-level radioactive accident during rush hour an the Spaghetti Bowl, where Interstate 15 and U.S. 95 intersect.