Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

County ready for disaster

How well prepared is Nevada County in the event of a serious disaster?

Members of the Prescott City Council asked this question of Jim Cross, the county's emergency coordinator, recently.

Cross has been the emergency coordinator for the last three years. He said the county has been preparing for what has been taking place in the nation at this time, with terrorists attacking public facilities.

The emphasis, he said, has been placed on weapons of mass destruction, but the last thing anyone wants to see is biological warfare.

"The U.S. isn't ready for this," he said. "If hoof and mouth disease hit the U.S., every deer and such in the nation would have to be killed to bring it under control."

He said there is only one lab in the nation with the capability of analyzing hoof and mouth disease, and it would be quickly overwhelmed.

"I hope this isn't the tip of the iceberg," he said. "If it is, the U.S. will see times it's never seen before."

Biological warfare, he said, would quickly overwhelm all resources available.

Prescott and Nevada County, he said, isn't equipped to deal with the kind of public shelters that would be needed, as they simply aren't there.

"We need more facilities with generating capability so we could be more self-sufficient."

Cross said the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management is working on the possibility of weapons of mass destruction being used, and has a notebook with 200 pages for its people to study.

A complete analysis must be made of Nevada County, what is has and doesn't have in the way of emergency equipment and needs in the event of terrorist attack.

The ADEM does annual crisis exercises, but this year, Cross said, it used the ice storm, an actual emergency instead, to see how well the emergency response teams fared, and how the plans worked.

What was learned is the county needs a way to transport large amounts of water, as the water supply was one of the most critical aspects of the ice storm.

Cross said one of his biggest fears is the railroad, because of the hazardous waste carried. "If we had a major derailment downtown, we'd have a real problem. We'd have to evacuate the area to be safe."

There are occurrences about once a month, he said, at the Exit 44 truck stop involving chemical spills, and this will increase with more interstate travel.

Prescott Mayor Howard Taylor said a couple of local doctors have suggested the next disaster drill involve a derailment.

Councilman Howard Austin suggested marking emergency evacuation routes so residents can get out of the county.

In the event of a derailment, should the train be carrying hazardous waste, wind direction would be a major factor in how people could leave the area.

The county, Cross said, has a red book, updated every four years, with all of the emergency preparedness information.

He said a scenario was developed for a derailment with the train blocking everything but the Wildcat Road crossing. "It created a problem."

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he said, the state began looking at how it would deal with terrorism.

The Sept. 11 event, Cross said, was a textbook case, with a primary event followed by a secondary event. In the interim between the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, emergency personnel arrived and was caught in the maelstrom of the secondary event.

This, Cross said, is how terrorists work. They create a primary event, allow time for emergency workers to arrive, then hit with the secondary event.

He concluded on a less-than-positive note saying the National Weather Service has forecast a repeat of last winter for this year.