CAPE COUNTY DISASTER DRILL GOES OFF WITHOUT A HITCH

JACKSON -- The Cape Girardeau County Administration Building needs a better telephone system to handle calls in case of a disaster.

An earthquake drill Thursday pointed out the problem, said Dave Hitt, director of the Cape Girardeau County Emergency Management Agency.

Hundreds of people participated in the earthquake drill, including several major industries, the East Cape Girardeau and Fruitland volunteer fire departments, a number of schools, and the county's emergency operations center.

"Like any exercise we found areas that we need to do something about," said Hitt.

Telephone communication was a problem area at the county building in Jackson where the emergency operations center is housed.

The operations center is on the first level, but the county doesn't have enough phone lines to handle all the calls in the event of a disaster, Hitt said.

"The phone system is not set up to be an emergency operations center," he said.

He said county officials have been looking at getting a new telephone system. The existing system is about 13 years old.

Some calls during the drill ended up being answered by county employees on the building's third floor, far from the people in the operations center who needed to receive the messages.

The earthquake drill began at 9 a.m., with dozens of mock casualties at the Procter & Gamble Co. plant and the adjacent M&W Packaging plant.

A propane tank was set on fire at the M&W plant as part of the drill.

P&G evacuated its entire plant, which involved about 1,200 workers on the day shift.

Mike Rushing of Rushing Marine Services piloted his boat up the Mississippi River to test possible landing spots near the P&G plant to ferry the injured in case of a disaster.

"Now, they have two or three sites where they can load on casualties," he said.