Schools happy with safety drill
|
|
Children in the early Head Start program and their teachers await a bus during a mock evacuation at Brattleboro Union High School on Wednesday morning. Albert J. Marro / Rutland Herald |
Toolbox
By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer - Published: May 6, 2010
BRATTLEBORO — This was the Vermont Yankee version of "drill, baby, drill."
Even the babies in day care at the Windham Career Center at Brattleboro Union High School on Wednesday had to practice during an emergency preparedness drill for the nearby Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
The drill tested the state's ability to move 3,500 students out of harm's way in the event of a nuclear emergency at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. It appeared to go smoothly Wednesday.
Six of the eight toddlers at the early Head Start program, which is part of the early essential education class, were loaded into a special "evacuation crib" on wheels and pushed out onto the lawn to wait their turn getting on and off a bus, with help from their three teachers.
The children seemed to drink in the hubbub, standing up in their mobile crib and enjoying the sunny morning. Their teachers knew their duties and had packed for the babies' needs: extra bottles, clean shirts, and their iodide tablets, said teacher Lisa McDougall.
The tablets, which are distributed free by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to people living in the 10-mile emergency zone surrounding Vermont Yankee, help to block the body's thyroid gland from absorbing radiation.
Fellow teachers Elizabeth Acevedo and Kathy Bloom kept the kids distracted as they waited for their bus.
"Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream," the teachers sang, and again: "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream."
Finally, their turn came, and the children were carried onto the bus. And carried off.
While no students were driven away from their schools, students in the six towns surrounding Vermont Yankee were put on buses, as the state tested how quickly the drill could get the students on the buses.
Students had a 45-minute break from routine classes, as they lined up, got their names checked off on a roster sheet, and sat in some of those big yellow buses with their teachers. After a few minutes, they were let off to return to class.
The mood was festive on a beautiful spring morning.
"We would not be doing a good job if we did not find some things we could improve," said Lewis Stowell, an emergency planner with the Department of Public Safety, which coordinated the drill for the Vermont Office of Emergency Management.
Previous drills showed shortcomings in communication and not enough buses.
David Coughlin, director of the Windham Career Center, which is attached to Brattleboro Union High School, was equally pleased with the students' and teachers' response.
"It works," said Coughlin, as the final students walked back to class after their brief drill reprieve.
Coughlin said that while the drill was ostensibly about a possible emergency at Vermont Yankee, which is about five miles away from the school complex on Fairground Road, the emergency training could come into use if there was a hazardous waste spill on Interstate 91, which is a very short distance from the school.
Coughlin said the school has to know where every student is at all times, so at the start of the drill he made a quick calculation who was on campus and who was off at a job or internship.
"We've done well," he said.
Stowell said Wednesday's drill affected 3,500 students in six different towns.
The drill also included the state's plans for nursing home residents in the emergency evacuation zone, Stowell said, although no nursing home residents were moved or asked to get on buses.
He said there are more than 200 nursing home residents in the emergency evacuation zone.
After the students at Brattleboro Union High School had completed their part of the drill, Stowell headed north with all the buses to the reception center at the Bellows Falls Union High School.
At the reception center, all the school buses delivered their roster lists, and people went through the paces of logging in students and assigning them to temporary shelters at other schools, which had been set up by the Red Cross.
This is the first transportation drill in two years, Stowell said, noting that a drill four years ago didn't go nearly as smoothly as the latest.
Stowell said Wednesday marked the first time the state had established a "waypoint center" at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in White River Junction, to act as the possible clearing center on how to assess and evaluate the needs of the nursing home residents and possible hospital patients being evacuated.
After the drill, Stowell said participants at the BFUHS reception area said there had to be a better way of dealing with the rosters of students.
The lists could be computerized, he said, helping keep tabs on the students until their parents pick them up in an emergency.
In a couple of weeks, key players in the drill will get together and discuss what can be done to improve things.
"People in Brattleboro should feel good. We continue to practice, and we continue to improve things," he said.
13