AGENCIES TAKE PART IN METH DRILL

A Meth Lab Explodes.

The site: a trailer at the edge of the Old Hubbard School property on
Hubbard School Lane.

Blount County Sheriff's Office deputies arrive, and Blount County
firefighters douse the burning building. It's a scenario that requires the
help of a lot of emergency services agencies, and Wednesday morning they
all tested their skills during the largest decontamination exercise held in
Blount County.

It was only a test, no buildings blew up and no arrests were made. The 11
victims taken to Blount Memorial Hospital, including one child, weren't
really hurt.

Having all the county's emergency services agencies participate was
essential to improve how they all function under a "unified command,"
according to Kelley Mure, Blount County Homeland Security Director.

She said scene incident commander, Lt. Scott Thomas, Blount County
Sheriff's Office, did a "phenomenal job."

Emergency services in the cities and county learned more about their
strengths and looked for problem areas, said Mure.

"We want to find things we can do better," she said

BMH Security Director Mark Griffith agreed.

"We wanted to test our systems and ability to respond to that kind of
scenario, and we knew any such response would likely involve many other
emergency agencies, and that's why we initiated the organizing of this
drill," Griffith said. "We've learned a lot of things that'll benefit us,
and hopefully, the other participating agencies. I also have to say we're
really pleased to have had the level of participation that we did.

"This is the first time in 26 years that we've had all our local emergency
responders collaborate on exercise like this, and that's great cooperation
that'll benefit the community."

Mure said the exercise went well overall. In the next few days, agencies
will critique their performance.

Blount County deputies, the Blount County Fire Department, the Fifth
Judicial District Drug Task Force, Rural/Metro Ambulance Service and the
Blount County Volunteer Rescue Squad set up at the Hubbard Lane scene.

Area coordinators for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency were at
Hubbard Lane and at BMH, where a decontamination trailer and unit waited
for victims and emergency services personnel who had to decontaminate after
their work.

The Alcoa Fire Department, Blount County Communications and Maryville Fire
Departments also participated.

Each county handles decontamination exercises differently, according to
Carl McDaniel, TEMA area coordinator for Knox, Anderson, Scott, Campbell
and Blount counties.

Many rural areas don't have the equipment for meth lab decontamination, he
said.

"What's so scary is that the people doing the chemical process (cooking the
meth) are high school dropouts. That's not a blanket statement," McDaniel
said. "That's generally the case, and they have children in them -- some of
the scenarios we have are absolutely hair-raising."