Agencies conduct major disaster drill at Port of Cleveland

CLEVELAND - The largest disaster drill ever conducted kicked off Tuesday at Port of Cleveland. It's a drill officials say is important for northeast Ohio because the region is rimmed by two nuclear power plants.

This two-day drill simulates a national radiological terrorist attack originating in Detroit, followed by patient treatment in Cleveland.

[See more disaster drill photos: http://5.wews.com/O4V]

VA medical trainer Laurie Turner said day one focused on first responder activities, while day two will focus on hospital response and medical care.  

”They are transporting patients from Detroit to Cleveland,” Turner said. “They’re contaminated, so they’ll have to go through de-con and be triaged and be tracked as patients”

Mannequins were used as casualties; no actual patients were used. Some mannequins had tags and tattoos to designate them as possible terrorists.

The federal government holds these disaster drills every three years, usually at airports. This is the first drill held at a port.

Each drill is planned with four objectives in mind. The first is to test the national disaster medical system and transportation to the hospital. The second is to practice detection and response to a radiological terrorist attack. The third is to test emergency response, especially where mass fatalities are involved. The last is to evaluate the effectiveness of the rehearsed disaster plan.

“We just want to make sure that we’re secure now and for the future,” Turner said.

Officials said other goals of the disaster drill are to educate the community, help people prepare for an attack and encourage people to put together a personal disaster plan covering any incident from a house fire to a major attack.

For more information on putting together a personal disaster plan, visit www.ready.gov

The drill continues Wednesday at UH Case Medical Center at 9:15 a.m.

Twenty-eight planners have worked to plan this drill since December 2011. Fifty government agencies participated.