Hazmat drill in Polk last week brings together first responders for practicing for chemical spill
Note: Photos for this were provided by the Polk County Emergency Management Agency. -KtE
It is something that happens all too commonly: a truck will be turning off of Highway 278 onto the Highway 27 bypass, pulling a heavy load from one spot to another and just passing through Polk County for a brief moment of life.
Yet that turn becomes a headache for motorists, a threat to the driver’s safety and others, and a potential mess for all depending on what’s being pulled by a tractor trailer when it slips in rainy conditions during the turn and tips over into the roadway. The load in the back just so happens during this wreck to contain an “unknown hazardous material” which could cause serious injuries to more than just a driver involved in the wreck.
That was the point of last Thursday’s exercise in Polk County that brought in first responders from across the community to simulate such a crash and how they would handle the situation when hazardous materials get loose in the local environment.
Polk County Emergency Management officials and the Local Emergency Planning Committee hosted the exercise on April 11 and even worked through rain through the morning event.
The exercise brought together agencies from the County, Cedartown and Rockmart to go through the steps they’d have to take to treat an injured driver, prevent contamination of the environment, and cleanup a bad spill before being able to clear the scene.
Officials utilized the exercise to provide an opportunity to test capabilities ranging from decontamination of the scene and people involved to communications throughout the event, and then figure out what spilled and clean it up appropriately.
It was one of three exercises Polk County is required to conduct on an annual basis by Georgia Emergency Management Agency, per the Polk County EMA.
Officials consider the preliminary results of the exercise a success, per EMA Director Bobby Dockery.
“It was a full-scale drill testing our capabilities with first responders,” Dockery said. “The whole process didn’t last but about an hour.”
He said the whole exercise was designed by EMA Coordinator Landon Hendrix as part of his professional development toward gaining full Emergency Management designation. Dockery noted he was pleased with how the exercise went through what is a typical scenario for a potential wreck scene in Polk County, and just down the road from the EMA offices.
An after-action review is coming up on the exercise to determine what went well and what didn’t, in hopes of finding a way to increase capabilities and learn from potential mistakes that could happen in the field during a real emergency, Dockery said.
