Emergency Evacuation Exercise A Success
21 April 2008
It is 9.20 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. An 8 tonne truck carrying a mixed load of hazardous materials is driving east in Wellington Road and attempts to turn right into Jacksons Road. The driver fails to properly negotiate the corner and the vehicle tips onto its side.
Part of the load catches fire and commences to burn. The chemicals further along the load give off chlorine gas and there is a very real threat of a low level explosion. The Incident Controller decides that the public should be evacuated from under the potential plume and Monash's Municipal Emergency Plan swings into action.
Fortunately, this is not a real life disaster but an emergency exercise played out last Tuesday in Mulgrave.
"The response to the event was a 'role play' evacuation of residents to an assembly point, transportation to a 'Relief Centre' and the management of the 'Relief Centre'," said Cr Klisaris.
"This live exercise enables us to evaluate emergency response, relief and recovery procedures for a major incident."
The exercise involving 180 participants from various agencies within the community included Victoria Police, students from Wellington Secondary College, the Department of Human Services, Metropolitan Fire Brigade, Metropolitan Ambulance Service, State Emergency Service, Australian Red Cross, Council of Churches, St John Ambulance and Monash City Council.
Cr Klisaris said that the exercise has been developed to allow participating agencies to 'respond' to the incident using their own standard operating procedures.
"A debrief at the end of the exercise concluded that it was a great opportunity to test the resources that would be used if such an emergency really did occur and also highlighted areas of the Emergency Management Plan that could be further developed to better prepare us for unforseen major incidents," he said.
Published: 21 April 2008
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