by Wayne Parry
The Associated Press
UNION, N.J. - The focus of the nation’s largest-ever anti-terrorism drill shifted to hospitals Tuesday as fake victims streamed in from a mock biological attack in New Jersey and a simulated chemical-weapons explosion in Connecticut.
Four large, inflatable decontamination tents were set up in the parking lot of Union Hospital to treat the dozens of “patients” who had arrived by 9 a.m. from New Jersey’s mock pneumonic plague attack.
Doctors, nurses and the actors all wore white face masks, and each patient was given a colored toe tag to signify the severity of their condition. Five of the 64 patients wore black tags, indicating they were “dead.”
In New London, Conn., rescue crews and dogs sorted through rubble simulating a partially collapsed building, looking for volunteers playing victims and dummies used to represent fatalities from a simulated mustard gas attack.
The $16 million, weeklong exercise is meant to find weak spots in the nation’s emergency planning.
The drill began Monday in New Jersey at the Hillside campus of Kean University, with an investigation of a sport utility vehicle suspected in mock terms of spraying an aerosolized form of the deadly bacteria from a nozzle sticking out a rear window.
In New London, Conn., buses were overturned and volunteers playing victims wore gruesome makeup to simulate blisters and bloody scars.
As intelligence agencies attempt to find the culprits, Connecticut officials were discussing how to clean up the partially collapsed building without risking additional injuries or contaminating the environment with the simulated mustard gas.
Health care systems were expected to be pushed to the breaking point in several locations. Hospitals remained open to treat real patients during the drill.
New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey said officials will have to answer several crucial questions quickly as part of the exercise.
“At what point do we think about quarantine?” he said. “At what point do we think about isolations or mass dispensation of medication? How do we control the public?”
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