Yankee drill shows communication gap
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Chuck Schwer (left) an employee of the Agency of Natural Resources, and Terry Aiken, a member of the Vermont HazMat Response Team, prepare to take air samples in Vernon as part of the Vermont Yankee emergency preparedness drill Wednesday. SUSAN SMALLHEER / Rutland Herald |
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By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer - Published: June 11, 2009
VERNON – Three teams from Vermont's hazardous materials response team went looking for imaginary radioactivity Wednesday, as part of the federal emergency preparedness drill for the towns around the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor.
They found it, and in the process discovered a communication gap.
"Our job is to go to the edges," said Chuck Schwer, a longtime employee with the Agency of Natural Resources and a member of the state response team, who would also respond in the event of a real emergency.
Schwer and fellow members of the radioactive plume team sample the air and take radioactivity readings around the plant, which would determine whether thousands of people in Vermont and beyond need to be evacuated.
Wednesday's drill revealed some real-life problems: Schwer's team's emergency radio wouldn't work, and neither could they pull down a strong cell phone signal to relay information back to headquarters.
The drill also revealed communication problems with the town of Brattleboro, the largest community near the plant.
The drill is held every other year by the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency. It tests whether the 15 proximate towns in Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, as well as the three state governments, are prepared for a disaster at the Vernon reactor. Hundreds of people participate in the drill at dozens of locations.
The Brattleboro municipal building had been having problems with its direct extension phone lines for a couple of days even before the drill, and state emergency officials in the state center in Waterbury had to resort to contacting people on their private cell phones at the center in Brattleboro to find out what was wrong.
Barbara Farr, Vermont's director of emergency management, said after the daylong exercise that alternative routes of communication were established, using radios and the town's fax machine.
"The good thing is we always have built-in redundancy," she said. "It went great from our end," she summed up, a view echoed by Entergy Nuclear official Larry Smith at its Brattleboro offices after the drill.
Farr called the communication problems "minor," and said that during any drill, such things surface.
Brattleboro's problems were traced to a faulty digital interface from One Communication of Hartford, Conn., which provides the 251 direct-dial line into the town office extensions, according to Catrina Lawley, of the town office. The problem had existed for more than two days, she said.
Lawley said that the town's older lines, including a 254 line, worked just fine.
Out in the field, Team 3 had problems with its radio, as well as cell phones, eventually resorting to the phone of an official observer of the drill.
"This is a drill. Team 3 calling in … can you hear me?" said Schwer, as he repeatedly tried to contact his boss, Chris Herrick, to get instructions on where to go to measure the radioactive plume.
As team member Terry Aiken drove down Route 142 toward the plant, the team radioed in for more detailed instructions on where to go to test the air, a key information-gathering assignment, information used to determine where evacuations of residents should be ordered.
They were directed to a road off Route 142, which none of them could find on a map.
Schwer got on the radio again, to ask for better directions. Still no answer.
The team started getting perturbed.
"Is this the only map you have of Vernon?" Aiken asked Schwer.
"This map sucks," said Phil Stolz, an evaluator in the back seat, who was participating in the drill. Everyone agreed that GPS would be a vital improvement.
Finally, a half a mile past the reactor, Rinfret Drive appeared, but still there was no radio reception. The radio had been tested repeatedly at their staging area in Dummerston, but now it failed to work.
Aiken, a retired Vermont State Police trooper, tried to make the radio work. It wouldn't. Schwer's cell phone didn't have reception, neither did Aiken's. Then they borrowed Stolz' phone, who was sitting in the back seat, evaluating Schwer and Aiken's every action. His phone had reception.
They got out of their van, plugged in the air sampling machine to the van's battery, and got to work taking samples.
Earlier, Aiken had put on one of the personal protection suits, a white Tyvek suit with booties and gloves, that would keep him from getting contaminated and would also keep him from contaminating the samples they were collecting.
Air samples collected, dosimeters read, Geiger counter checked, they tried to call Herrick again for another assignment. He told them to head toward Guilford and to call back for another assignment.
At Route 5, again there was no radio and no cell phone service.
They borrowed Stolz' phone and called Herrick, who told them to drive around until they found better reception.
Farr said that the teams should have known where there were "dead" spots in Vernon, since it is well known that there are areas in Vernon that are not served by cell towers.
At a pull-off on Route 5, Team 3 finally got steady cell phone coverage, and Herrick told them they weren't needed to take any more air samples. They headed back to the Agency of Transportation's district office in Dummerston, to turn in their samples.
As they turned into the driveway, the radio came to life and started squawking.
FEMA will hold a public information session about its observations of the drill Monday, June 15, at Vernon Elementary School.
susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com
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