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CLARK COUNTY PREPARING EVACUATION PROTOCOL
Monday, February 6th, 2006 -- 2:50 pm
Posted by Riley Hebert-News Director
Clark County Emergency Management Director Jennifer Lord-Kouraichi says the county recently received $5,700 in state grant money to develop Standard Operating Procedures for conducting evacuations.
The County will obviously never face a natural disaster as devastating as Hurricane Katrina, but people may be shocked by how much hazardous material can be found here.
“(Clark County) has seventeen sites with “extremely hazardous” materials – which means, at small quantities they’d be extremely hazardous to human life,” Lord-Kouraichi explains. “In addition, we have four different rail lines carrying everything from anhydrous ammonia to natural gas.”
Those trains present a threat for a large evacuation. It was a decade ago this March that a train derailed in Weyauwega containing liquefied petroleum gas, propane and two tank cars of sodium hydroxide. Fireballs were shot 300-feet into the air and a two-week evacuation of the Waupaca County city ensued.
But there are other scenarios that might prompt a widescale evacuation. Officials worry about semi trailers overturning and forest fires spreading through the county’s forestland.
“Fire season is around the corner. People in Adams County had trouble getting prepared to evacuate people for that fire last year,” Lord-Kouraichi says.
Lord-Kouraichi and longstanding LEPC member Bill Penker are in the process of holding meetings with volunteer firefighters. Once the operating procedures of complete, a tabletop exercise will be held with members of the Clark County Fire Association and Clark County members of the Marathon County Sheriff’s Department Level “B” HAZMAT Team.
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