I’m not sure why a city of 20,000 would have a disaster drill in the first place. It is some govt. yahoos out for a play day in my opinion.
Here is the wikipedia entry for Portsmouth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsmouth,_OH
“Decline
By 1950, the population had passed its peak of approximately 42,000.[citation needed] Foreign competition eventually caused most of the industry on which Portsmouth’s economy was based to move out of the area. A major blow came in 1980 when the steel industry suspended local operations. With a current population of approximately 20,000, the city is not far removed from many small cities along the Ohio River valley, sharing many of the same problems in an era of unskilled labor outsourcing and population migration to more urban areas with the subsequent loss of both skilled and unskilled labor.[citation needed]
[edit] Prescription drug epidemic
Unintentional prescription drug deaths by county for the years 2004 to 2008
“
We have a very high addiction rates in addition to the death rates. A lot of young people are addicted. Our treatment facilities are overwhelmed. The court systems are overwhelmed.
”
—-Lisa Roberts, registered nurse with the Portsmouth City Health Department[10]
Since the late 1990s an epidemic of prescription drug abuse has swept the town and surrounding areas.[11] It has caused a dramatic increase in Hepatitis C cases,[12] drug related deaths,[13] robberies,[14][15][16] murder,[17] and an increased incidence of children born addicted to prescription drugs.[11] The most prevalent drug is OxyContin, a synthetic opiate originally developed as a cancer drug, known colloquially as oxys and hillbilly heroin (because of the drugs association with Appalachian areas of Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia).[18] The crisis is blamed on the proliferation of cash-only pain clinics, known as “pill mills” by locals. According to authorities there are as many as eight of the clinics in Scioto County alone,[13] the largest concentration of such operations per capita in any of Ohio’s counties.[19]
That place sounds like such a pain! It’s obvious why they need the pain clinics (only half joking).