Left to right, Bill Edwards, Nicole Zawadzki, Steve Gunnink and Bill Eaton, from the Volpentest HAMMER Federal Training Center, were participants in the Cascadia Rising 2016 Exercise.
This image shows the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), a 90,000 square mile plate that moves across the floor of the Juan de Fuca plate. Over the past two decades, researchers have confirmed that the CSZ area has experienced 40 massive earthquakes in the past 10,000 years.
RICHLAND, Wash. – Staff members from EM’s Richland Operations Office Volpentest Hazardous Materials Management and Emergency Response (HAMMER) Federal Training Center facility recently participated in what is being called the largest earthquake drill of any kind in Washington state history.
The Cascadia Rising 2016 Exercise was designed to test the ability of government agencies and state and local response centers in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, Canada, to coordinate joint-interagency disaster operations in response to a catastrophic magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. More than 6,000 first responders, military personnel and emergency management crews participated in the exercise.
The Hanford Site facility’s participation in the training exercise comes on the heels of emergency preparedness events at EM’s West Valley Demonstration Project, Savannah River Site (SRS), and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in recent months. The SRS exercise also involved a mock earthquake, which led to a radioactive waste spill, injuries and a dam failure.
The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a tectonic plate that stretches from British Columbia to California. More than 10 million people reside in the direct impact zone, which covers 140,000 square miles.
“We tried to simulate, to the greatest extent possible, the challenges, issues, and stressors of a Level-1 catastrophic earthquake disaster,” said Nicole Zawadzki, with HAMMER Emergency Services Training & Programs. “To see all of the agencies come together in a time of great tragedy and catastrophic damage was quite remarkable.”
In addition to assisting with writing a portion of the exercise scenario, Zawadzki and her staff support the DOE’s energy response team tasked with the response mission for the energy sector, named Emergency Support Function #12. The team is made up of responders from across the DOE complex who support the Federal Emergency Management Agency and provide technical assistance and energy-sector expertise during incidents requiring a coordinated federal response.
This kind of interagency collaboration and expertise in safety training has led HAMMER to be honored as a best practice by the DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments.
“Electrical energy and fuel infrastructure are key components within the recovery and restoration efforts,” said Steve Gunnink, with HAMMER Emergency Services Training & Programs. “Working with federal, state, and local governments, we all learned a great deal about how to better prepare and respond together in the Pacific Northwest.”
The need for the exercise grew from scientific research indicating the Pacific Northwest region will eventually experience a catastrophic earthquake.
Through partnership with the DOE Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability, HAMMER is developing a report with recommendations on how the response team can improve.