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Surrounded by other debris, Kathy LaShell of North Platte focuses on her portion of the grid and places a personal effects flag near a piece of clothing during a drill at the mass fatality exercise. |
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NORTH PLATTE - North Platte emergency workers and volunteers dressed in white Tyvek protective suits, slid on green protective gloves and a face mask before heading out to the debris field to work the grids.
Peter Teahen of International Mass Fatalities Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, told workers that 4,500 people were attending a conference when an explosion occurred at a convention center in North Platte.
He said although it appeared to be the work of terrorists, it was later determined that deranged individuals were to blame.
“There are more than 100 fatalities and more than 1,800 children were in the building at the time of the explosion.
The mass fatality exercise is in its third day at Lee Bird Field in North Platte and Thursday’s field exercise was set up to take participants through a practical grid exercise.
Each area of the debris field is cordoned off and teams line up behind specified work areas. Armed with a camera, different colored stakes and along with a team leader, the group stepped carefully over the thin thread into the debris-ridden field.
The goal is to look under every grass blade, behind every rock and into every cranny to find the obvious, and sometimes the not-so-obvious, remainder from a catastrophic event.
“They will be looking for something as small as a tooth,” Teahen said. “In fact, there is one out there so we’ll see if they find it.”
Team members were finding mannequin body parts, pieces of clothing and computer hardware items. Each item was flagged by the appropriate colored flag.
Personal remains were tagged with a red-flag stage, evidence was green and personal effects were tagged with yellow flags.
Teahen said an actual recovery during a plane accident might take weeks, if not months, to clean up.
Investigators use the debris field to determine where the accident may have happened.
“A plane may end up being 12 foot long and buried 20 feet into the ground,” Teahen said.
“It is tedious and critical work,” he said.
©North Platte Telegraph 2007 |
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