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South Seattle Community College held an Emergency Response Training Exercise today, Tuesday, from 8:00am-5:00pm. The exercise, “Seattle Storm” simulates a Weapons of Mass Destruction chemical hazard threat at the north end of campus, in the Landscape Horticulture area. Participants involved in the exercise include the 10th Civil Support Team, US Army North (USARNORTH)-Bravo Division, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Police Department Bomb Squad, and Washingtoon National Guard J3 Domestic Ops.

Commander Matthew James was there to call a lot of the shots.

This realistic exercise is scenario-driven and focused on recognizing and demonstrating the ability to meet incident objectives when faced with a potential Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) threat.

The two-part exercise concludes Thursday, September 1, 2011, at Seattle Central Community College. That exercise will involve a simulated dirty bomb radiological device.

"Somebody was hurt in a chemical event (in the exercise) and taken to the hospital," said Todd Chance, US Army North, San Antonio, at 8:00 a.m. "The hospital is going to be asking what we suspect is in the facility that hurt the victim.

"This is the command vehicle," he said of the black, 35-foot diesel imposing half-million dollar truck with three slide-outs. "There would be a control officer onsite dispatched from a 911 call, and EMS and Fire Rescue would have shown as well."

Officer Tim Allen, Seattle Police Department, with Homeland Security Unit, and Army reservist spoke of the interior. He explained the presence of televisions on the truck.

"The TV screens you see help us with situation awareness," he said. "If folks at home are viewing the news of an incident a mile away we also want to know what's going on around us."

The mass camera (extending above the roof) can be controlled from the laptop and rotated.

"We have rapidly deployable tripod mounted wireless cameras we can put out in various locations," he said.

James Lewis is the SSCC campus security director. Robert Huss is Lewis' counterpart at Seattle Central Community College. They supported the various teams with their familiarity of the grounds, including traffic control, fire hydrants, and building layouts. Lewis and Huss said these exercises also give them a chance to run through the steps to better prepare for the real thing were something to occur on campus.

This exercise took place twice before at Seattle Central Community College, and once at the Seattle Maritime Academy in Ballard.

Said James Lewis at 5:00 p.m., "They had a guy (one of the crew) who got contaminated and brought him out into the decon area. They rolled him on a stretcher to the decon(tamination) tent and sprayed him with the suit still on him, then cut the suit off him. That went well, too."