Area hospitals take part in national drill to fight terrorism

Jace Radke

Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2003 | 9:41 a.m.

Clark County Health District officials are working to "identify" a simulated flu bug that has been "discovered" in three Las Vegas hospitals as part of a national terrorism drill that got under way on Monday.

Operation Determined Promise is a two-week training exercise designed to test the ability of local, state and federal officials to work with the military during a terrorist disaster.

"We're starting to get (simulated) calls from throughout the community about flu-like symptoms," Clark County Chief Health Officer Dr. Donald Kwalick said at a Monday news conference. "We'll do the lab work to determine what it is and work to stop its spread through the community."

The fake illness is expected to morph into a simulated outbreak of the plague that will overtax local and state resources, forcing Frank Siracusa, chief of the Nevada Division of Emergency Management, to ask for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Clark County Fairgrounds, outside of Logandale, 58 miles north of Las Vegas, will serve as a stand-in for the Las Vegas Strip in the exercise.

The outbreak will overwhelm local emergency resources, forcing a call to Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., home of Northern Command, the nation's domestic terrorism watchdog, said Jeff Griffin, a FEMA regional director.

"FEMA has been brought under the Department of Homeland Security, and that increased our areas of responsibility from natural disasters, to man-made disasters caused by terrorism," Griffin said. "We will coordinate the federal response and enable Northern Command to come in and assist."

Moire than 1,200 people are expected to take part in the exercise in Nevada, but they won't be the only ones experiencing large-scale training over the next two weeks.

At the same time that the National Guard is helping with the plague outbreak in Nevada, a simulated hurricane will make landfall in the United States along the Gulf of Mexico as part of the drill.

There will also be simulated terrorist attacks on port cities, and simulated hijacked aircraft being used as bombs against oil refining targets in Alaska. An imaginary train carrying military munitions will derail in Kentucky as part of the drill, and simulated wildfires across the west will put a further strain on resources.

Col. Eugene Pino, of Northern Command, said that the drill is a graduation level exercise for Northern Command to determine if the military unit put together after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The President has ordered that the unit be fully operational by Oct. 1.

"This exercise will validate everything that we've done to date," Pino said. "We always need to be prepared, and I think this exercise is perfectly timed as a deterrent.

"I think terrorists are less likely to attack if they see we are prepared."

Along with Northern Command getting the chance to interface with local, state and federal authorities in a disaster environment, local responders will receive specialized training during the drill.

Members of the Clark County Fire Department hazardous materials team will work with a National Guard Civil Support team that specializes in containing weapons of mass destruction. The teams will work together to evaluate and process a simulated terrorist laboratory suspected of producing plague, authorities said.