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Here's an update on the "Genesis" plan to deal with potential survivors of a nuclear attack in DC (or Baltimore). Long, but interesting in a macabre way.

"Hagy defends Genesis"

by Chris Patterson
Staff Writer

Mar. 4, 2004
To some critics, the Genesis Project has so many flaws that the officials who designed it should look for another way to deal with the exodus that would follow a nuclear terrorist attack in Washington, D.C., or Baltimore.

But to Frederick County Sheriff James W. Hagy (R), using the Great Frederick Fair grounds to decontaminate refugees makes the most sense, regardless of the controversy surrounding the idea.

On Monday, in his first in-depth, public comments on Genesis since some of the information on the project was released by the press, Hagy defended it, saying it is merely a "concept plan," and many aspects still need to be worked out.

He acknowledged that his reticence to release, or even loosely discuss, the plan may be influenced by his role as a law enforcement officer, something that controls his tendency to limit the release of any information even remotely sensitive.

But Hagy said the Nuclear Subcommittee of the county's Local Emergency Planning Committee, which drafted the plan, voted to let him disclose the full particulars of it, despite his concerns about making the fairgrounds itself a target for terrorists.

"Now obviously the information is out there [and] I've gone back to the board of directors, and because they are such patriotic people they're saying, 'Yes, you can go public with this,'" Hagy said.

Some of the particulars have been thrown around in the press and at office water coolers around the area based on copies of slide presentations from an early version of the plan that were leaked to the media.

Other information being debated is from a presentation made to the subcommittee in July 2003 by Terrance Richardson of Reeves Manufacturing, a Frederick company that consults for government agencies and manufactures decontamination equipment.

To understand the two documents, Hagy said the first point residents need to understand the plan, which identifies the county fairgrounds on East Patrick Street as the key site in the plan, is that it is a concept plan.

The committee, comprised of 15 volunteers with various areas of expertise, has worked and is continuing to work to come up with the best location to be the centerpiece of the services provided to those fleeing a nuclear attack. That site is the fairgrounds for many reasons, he argued, and those reasons are best understood if one understands the assumptions that went into designing Genesis.

The assumptions

First is the assumption that the community will be forced to deal with the aftermath a nuclear bomb about the size of a briefcase that would lead to a mass exodus from Washington or Baltimore.

By comparison, the impacted area for a "dirty bomb," a conventional bomb that spreads radioactive material, is relatively small, and will not create the mass casualties Genesis is designed to handle, Hagy said.

The second premise, and one receiving no attention, is that Genesis is designed to operate without federal support for 72 hours. Federal assistance is supposed to come by the end of that period, Hagy said.

A third assumption is that massive numbers of burn victims, or other serious injuries, from such an explosion will not reach this far north. Those fleeing to Frederick County will be physically able to travel, and will therefore have potential blindness from the explosion or radiation contamination, he said.

A fourth assumption is that people will travel to Frederick on foot.

The theory is that of the 40,000-plus Frederick-area commuters who travel down Interstate 270, many have emergency plans detailing where they should meet their family in a disaster. If I-270 and Md. Route 355 become clogged with traffic, which Hagy said will happen, people will walk to meet their families.

"Who's going to stop you? No one's going to stop me," he said. "...You're going to have to stop people if you don't want them to go to their families because human nature is to protect your family, and that's what it should be."

So the plan anticipates about 70,000 refugees and county residents seeking a way home, and help for injuries, almost all of them traveling on foot.

A fifth assumption is that people who need medical help will go to Frederick Memorial Hospital.

To best protect the city and county and help those in need, it is necessary to identify a location to decontaminate and treat people who overflow from the hospital. That place needs to have a large number of buildings that can quickly be converted to a hospital, triage area and morgue. It also needs a large area for decontamination. The fairgrounds, which is fenced in, became the logical place.

The decontamination area, Hagy said, will be as far away as possible from the homes on Patrick Street and Monroe Avenue. The decontamination will be done with water from fire trucks, regardless of the outside temperature because washing people down is key. Any runoff will be controlled to minimize contamination of the community's water supply.

The debate

The debate about Genesis began a year ago, when the Frederick Board of County Commissioners named Hagy the unified incident coordinator. The decision was not unanimous, or well received by some in local government.

Most vocal is Frederick Mayor Jennifer P. Dougherty (D). Prime among her concerns is the effect the plan will have on Frederick city residents.

Encouraging contaminated people into a residential area would endanger city residents unnecessarily, she said, adding that decontamination must take place before people enter the city.

Frederick Police Chief Kim Dine said he is concerned, as Dougherty is, with routing thousands of injured and contaminated refugees into the city.

"What I've been told regarding any site ... and what I've been told even by some of the people who trained our people in emergency preparedness, is that the optimum site would not be in the most populated part of any region," Dine said. "Obviously there are many, many considerations to weigh when you're assessing and analyzing all the factors, but that's kind of the initial basic one."

Dougherty referenced a presentation of issues related to the fairgrounds by Richardson, of Reeves Manufacturing, made in July 2003 that identified key concerns. The presentation suggested alternatives for decontamination along the highways to Frederick that she believes make more sense, such as the Urbana park-and-ride lot and the Urbana carnival grounds.

In an interview this week, Richardson said the Nuclear Subcommittee ignored his recommendations last July, and he could not understand why the committee members are "hell-bent" on using the fairgrounds.

"Honestly and truly, I think they are being really reckless with their site selection," he said. "...They have no interest in discussing chemical or biological responses. They are only interested in a radiological response. That's dangerous and poses a threat, but the chemical and biological side of it is a much greater threat."

Hagy said the Nuclear Subcommittee is not looking at chemical or biological disasters because that is the purview of other subcommittees within the Local Emergency Planning Committee. Those committees are working on the scenarios to which Richardson referred.

Nevertheless, one of Dougherty's concerns is that chemical and biological emergencies require most of the same questions to be asked regarding the site for decontamination. In some fashion, contaminated or infected people have to be contained, she said.

If 10,000 people are infected in Washington by a biological bomb of some kind, the concern about those persons carrying the disease into the city is no different from concerns about bringing radiation into the city.

"Are we supposed to let people in that are contaminated and creating a risk, or are we supposed to secure our borders to make sure that people that come in have been treated," Dougherty said.

As for Richardson's plan to set up sites outside of the city, Hagy said they were considered but when he learned that Richardson's company sells decontamination devices, Hagy's interest in the presentation ended.

In addition, Hagy said decontamination of people outside city limits is impractical, as there are too many ways people can enter Frederick County -- especially on foot. One prime decontamination site gives police and health care personnel more control and allows for better containment of radiated runoff.

And purely as a practical matter, having one centralized location for decontamination will make managing that process and containing runoff easier and cheaper, Hagy argued.

The county has only received $77,000 in federal money, a small amount compared to other counties closer to Washington, he said.

Moving forward

Even though it was not Hagy's first choice, he is prepared to release more information on the plan to the public. He is contacting agencies, such as the Frederick County Health Department and the county chapter of the Red Cross, to involve them with continuing work on the concept plan.

The Frederick Board of County Commissioners and Hagy will hold a public meeting on Genesis at 7 p.m., March 25, at Winchester Hall, 12 E. Church St., in Frederick. The meeting will be broadcast live on Frederick County cable channel 19.
Copyright © 2004 The Gazette
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While the Iraqi Sunnis utter no more terrorist attacks in Iraq the mortars keep coming.

Iraqi policemen survey the scene of a mortar attack at a mosque in the town of Mosul, some 390 km (235 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, March 4, 2004. Guerrillas launched at least five mortar rounds on a police station and mosque in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, injuring three people including a police officer, police said. Officers at the station in central Mosul said the attackers fired a volley of rounds, hitting the station, the street in front and an adjacent mosque, before fleeing by car. REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen

3 Injured in Attack on Mosul Police Station

Laurie Kassman

04 Mar 2004, 14:14 UTC

Iraqi authorities say at least three people were injured when a police station was attacked in the northern city of Mosul. Meanwhile, in the predominantly Sunni city of Ramadi, hundreds of residents demonstrated to protest Tuesday's attack on Shi'ite worshipers in Baghdad and Karbala.

Authorities have cordoned off the police station in Mosul, and launched a manhunt for the attackers. They say several mortar rounds hit the police station and an adjacent mosque, injuring several people.

A senior coalition official says such attacks are targeting security forces and infrastructure, which are key elements of Iraq's reconstruction.

The official says foreign terrorists who have infiltrated the country are also targeting key political leaders to disrupt their efforts to build a democratic government. Officials also say the suicide attacks Tuesday on Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims in Baghdad and Karbala are aimed at fomenting civil war.

But that campaign appears to have backfired. Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders have called for calm and national unity. And residents of the mostly Sunni town of Ramadi marched in the streets to protest the attacks on Iraqi Shi'ites, and to call for unity. The town has been considered a stronghold of Saddam Hussein loyalists.