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Assess, Sniff, Rescue: Shaken Fury Training Preps Safety Personnel To Manage Earthquake Aftermath

Lindsey Grojean/KRCU

When we talk about earthquake preparedness, we usually think of things we could do at the moment: covering our heads, getting under a doorway, or avoiding any large structures. But what about the aftermath?

Today, state and local safety personnel - Missouri Task Force 1, Missouri National Guard, and Southeast Missouri’s Homeland Security Response Team (HSRT), to name just a few - practiced what they would do in the event of a disastrous earthquake as part of FEMA’s “Shaken Fury” event. The earthquake response exercise used a 7.7 magnitude earthquake scenario along the southwest segment of the New Madrid Seismic Zone to simulate a building collapse, and even a triage response. It was the largest drill that HSRT’s Region E has coordinated with in order to work with all agencies involved.

At the main building collapse site on Independence St. in Cape Girardeau, bulldozers were working on moving rubble, personnel were hammering at concrete walls, EMTs were standing by, and dogs with the Task Force were sniffing around atop what many officials called the “pile.”

“There are actual pretend victims in there right now,” said Lt. Derick Wheetley with Sikeston DPS. “We received a report of twelve victims inside the building, but for this scenario they’re in some safety tubes, just in case we have a further collapse.”

Although the dogs - Toby and Georgia - were focused on picking up any type of human scent, one has the job of finding live humans and the other of finding human remains.

Credit Lindsey Grojean/KRCU

“If somebody has been in there longer, the human body starts decomposing. If you’re alive, you’re putting off a different scent,” said Wheetley. “We’re going to recover everybody, but the live humans we want to recover first.”

Shortly after work began, they had stabilized the building’s walls the best they could with wood and metal bracing. Wheetley said one of the longest and hardest jobs personnel would have to do today was accessing different points in the building through concrete.

“They’ve been at it for thirty minutes. Anytime we try to get through concrete, they use a sledgehammer or hydraulic tools to cut through,” said Wheetley. “It’s real heavy equipment, so we’re routinely having to rotate individuals so we don’t wear them down too fast.”

On the sidelines, a whiteboard showed a square with its sides labeled alphabetically. It was an aerial view of the building, and they typically work these areas clockwise.

“This makes it easier for everybody to know what side when they call back to the command post,” said Wheetley. “During high stress, it’s simple. We just need to look up.”

Medical triage began at the site, where Emergency Medical Services (EMS) determined whether victims could be released at the scene or needed to be transported to a local hospital. Patients were tagged and brought to areas colored red, yellow, or green, respectively indicating critical, intermediate, and walking wounded. For the drill, they managed one walking wounded and three criticals.

Southeast Hospital was the next stop on the exercise agenda. Incoming victims were again given tags with numbers that matched other records, which were then handed off to EMS. They could be tracked afterwards using the designation.

Lori Merritt, Director of Emergency Services with SoutheastHEALTH, said hospitals and medical workers were gauging their preparedness and ability to coordinate today, allowing them to identify any “weak areas” they may with their patient tracking process.

Credit Clayton Hester/KRCU

“[If] our facility is still stable and our facility is standing, we can take patients on into our hospital,” said Merritt, adding that if there were an issue with safety near the building, they would have to coordinate with EMS or the Fire Department to transport patients to other hospitals.

Merritt said the key outcome of the experience was to gain practice in the case of such a large-scale disaster. And, a lot of local inter-organizational coordination would be necessary if the circumstances they were simulating became a reality.

“It can be a little chaotic at first,” Merritt said. “But that’s what this is really giving us the opportunity to do.”

According to Missouri Task Force program manager, Scott Olsen, only half of the Missouri Task Force was used today. On Wednesday, the other half will perform the same exercises done today.

Olsen said they chose Cape Girardeau for “Shaken Fury” due to their working relationship with the southeast rescue team, and for its hot location on the New Madrid Seismic Zone.

Although these exercises trained personnel for the event of an earthquake, Olsen said they can apply to other natural disasters as well. When the Task Force is activated at any time, they have four hours to get out the door. But within the state, it’s reduced to two.  

“For the Jefferson City tornado, we were activated ten minutes after it hit. We had people on the road ten minutes after that, and we had four people - a structural engineer, task force leader, a hazmat specialist and a rescue team manager - there in 45 minutes, assessing,” said Olsen. “And in two hours, we had half the task force there doing search.”

Incident Manager Shawn Mitchell said that timeframe is drastically reduced for the HSME.  

“As you guys know, the rivers are high, and all our swift water rescue technicians and boat operators are all ready to go at any time,” said Mitchell. “If anything happened in Region E, as soon as we got the notice, we could be out the door in 10-15 minutes to anyone who needs it.”

Credit Lindsey Grojean/KRCU

In an earthquake scenario, Mitchell says to get to a safe place where something is sturdy above you. In the event that you are trapped, he said to make as much noise as you can, so as personnel assess the structure, they know somebody is inside and still alive.

“It’s very hard to look on the exterior and see if anybody’s inside,” said Mitchell. “But if we hear noises, it’s an indication that somebody is inside. Then we have different avenues that we go about in order to do rescues.”