By MONROE ROARK
mroark@thecitizennews.com

An employee lies unconscious in a side doorway leading to a room where numerous chemicals are handled on a daily basis. Another employee, after becoming ill, has already been driven by a colleague to the hospital.

Within minutes, a 911 call has resulted in a half-dozen units from three separate emergency services departments being dispatched to the facility at TDK Boulevard and Dividend Drive in Peachtree City's industrial park. Soon its members will be stalking into the building in bulky green suits to find out what has happened and who else might be in danger.

Actually, what has just been desribed was a training exercise that took place last Wednesday. But it revealed a great deal about what emergency personnel, as well as Lawson Marden employees, can do to combat these kinds of situations when they become real.

The Local Emergency Planning Committee organized the exercise as part of its continuing effort to foster a better relationship between emergency personnel and industry. The event spotlighted the Multijurisdictional Hazardous Materials Response Team, which is a joint operation of the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services, the Fayetteville Fire Department, and the Peachtree City Fire Department.

About 50 Lawson Marden employees were evacuated behind the building as the exercise began. Members of the media participated as well, approaching employees as if they had just received a tip about a possible news story at the plant and trying to find out what was going on.

The employees played their parts well. They were instructed not to tell the press anything, and they acted as if they had no idea why they had been told to leave the building. Media requests were then forwarded to the appropriate person at the plant.

Jim McClure, the site manager for this Lawson Marden facility, served as public information officer for this event, and said he would do so if it were real.

Although it seemed like a small number of employees for the 150,000-square-foot building, he said it was an accurate sample of the day shift because much of the plant is automated. “It's pretty high-tech,” he commented.

Other parts of the exercise carried out for the employees' benefit included management instructing an employee to “hide” in the building and see how long it would take others to notice someone was missing.

A representative of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency was at the site to observe and offer advice. She was particularly impressed with the extra care taken to protect the safety of the emergency personnel, something FCDFES spokesman Capt. Pete Nelms says is top priority.

Those who actually went inside the building in the big space-age suits, equipped with radios and breathing equipment underneath, were given thorough medical checks going in and coming out, Nelms said.

One suggestion that will be looked into is the possibility of simplifying the communications equipment, which took some time to hook up inside the suits, according toNelms.

The response time to Wednesday's exercise is not a totally accurate barometer of what it would be in a real situation, since the trucks coming from all over the county did not race down the highway with their sirens blazing.

A number of motorists on Dividend Drive became rubberneckers as they drove by and saw the units parked up and down the street. None of the trucks pulled right up next to the building, since they did not know the extent of the “contamination” caused by the accident.

After the exercise, a critique was held to look at any potential problems that were discovered and iron out the bugs.

“That's why we practice,” said Nelms, “so we can notice the pitfalls beforehand.”

Lawson Marden provided lunch for all of the participants after the morning's activities were completed. Nelms complimented the company on its participation, saying that it is a most cooperative member of the LEPC.