By Nick Nelson
Thursday at 10 a.m., an explosion will rock the field north of Deseret Towers and leave people nearby choking for breath on the ground, if all goes well.
The mock disaster drill will bring together several federal, state and local agencies ? including the FBI, Utah National Guard and Provo City Police and Fire departments ? to test their ability to respond to a lethal nerve gas attack at a BYU sporting event.
The drill begins with a loud blast set off by the Utah County Bomb Squad near a mock sporting event on the field. Next, the university police will call for reinforcements and advise local hospitals to expect an influx of patients. Volunteers will play the role of contaminated victims?some burned, some trample, others dead.
When they arrive at the scene, the Provo Fire and Rescue Department will take a lead role in the drill.
?We establish a command, establish patient care and request resources,? said Gary Jolley, battalion chief at Provo Fire and Rescue. ?Basically, we do the operations for the whole drill.?
These operations include on-site decontamination of victims designated as contaminated, transportation of victims to hospitals in Payson, Provo or American Fork and setting up an information center near the blast site for the public and media.
Kerry Baum, emergency preparedness coordinator for BYU?s risk management and safety department, said federal law requires all universities to contact the FBI in case of a terrorism-related incident and that the bureau would be on site Thursday, simulating an investigation into the explosion. He said the FBI was responsible for the arrest last year of a man caused more than $30,000 of damage to BYU property in the name of the Animal Liberation Front. He also said BYU receives several threatening telephone calls each year though few, if any, are serious.
Along with the FBI, the 85th Civil Support Team from the Utah National Guard will be called in to help clean up the disaster site.
?They decontaminate the site and the dead victims,? Baum said. ?Any time a weapon of mass destruction is involved, the National Guard would be involved in the decontamination.?
Decontamination for the live victims is a multi-step process in which volunteers will strip down to the bathing suits they?ve been asked to wear for the drill and then endure a hosing off and scrubbing down. Jolly said that depending on the potency of the chemical agent involved, contaminated victims may have to repeat the process several times. ?We set up a little tarp around them to maintain a little dignity for the victims,? he said.
The fire department will ship the victim volunteers all over Utah County, where hospitals will be waiting with decontamination equipment of their own. Baum said Utah County fire departments and hospitals were able to purchase decontamination equipment with money from a federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security.
The event will take place on one of two class-free days in which BYU students prepare for final exams. The drill itself will be an exam of sorts of the agencies involved, Baum said.
?We?ve got evaluators coming from the Association of Contingency Planners,? he said. ?More than the efficiency or speed, what we?re looking at is proper procedures. If it takes a little longer to do it, we?re not too worried about it.?
Baum said Army evaluators from Dugway Proving Ground will observe National Guard responders and the BYU College of Nursing will evaluate the response of the university?s Student Health Center.
Baum said that after the drill ends at 2 p.m., the heads of the organizations involved will meet to discuss what went right and wrong. He said the meeting would likely be closed to the public because the officials will be ?airing dirty laundry.?
But Jim Reeves, former president of the Utah chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners, said even possible failures amount to success in a drill like this one.
?The success of any rehearsal or any drill is what you learn from it,? he said. ?If you can come out on the other side with things you?ve grown and learned from, then you?re successful.?