CAPE COUNTY PARTICIPATES IN MOCK EARTHQUAKE DRILL

JEFFERSON CITY -- The earthquake struck at 11:27 a.m. Wednesday along the New Madrid Fault, collapsing buildings and killing hundreds of people in Cape Girardeau County. Fortunately, the disaster was only scripted make believe for a training exercise.

About 75 people in key decision-making jobs in Cape Girardeau County participated in the mock disaster exercise held in the State Emergency Management Agency's spacious operations center in Jefferson City.

Cape Girardeau County officials, city officials from Cape Girardeau and Jackson, staff from Southeast Missouri State University, and representatives of volunteer fire departments, businesses and relief agencies participated in the four-hour exercise.

The exercise pointed to a need for better communication among the various local governments and agencies, participants said.

"Each agency needs to understand the others' responsibilities better," said Gerald Jones, Cape Girardeau County presiding commissioner. Jones said representatives of the various agencies need to meet regularly to better plan for emergencies.

Commissioner Larry Bock said the disaster drill showed the county needs to improve its emergency plan.

"Communications were very poor," said Sheriff John Jordan. "We were improvising as we went along."

Steve Wilson, Jackson city administrator, echoed Jones' call for more joint training sessions.

Wilson said a major earthquake could devastate the county. "We are talking about some significant body counts here."

Cape Girardeau City Manager Michael Miller said the exercise was valuable. Most of the city's department heads participated in the drill.

Miller said there was a serious side to the disaster scenario. "This actually could happen," he said.

If such a disaster does occur, officials want to be prepared, said Jones.

The exercise occurred on the second day of three days of disaster training. The session concludes today with an exercise that will focus on post-quake recovery operations.

Wednesday's drill was the first such exercise put on by SEMA that focused on a single county. "We spent up to $15,000 to do this," said Eric Evans, State Emergency Management training officer. The money came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which had officials at the exercise.

Evans said the state hopes to provide similar training for other counties in the future.

Evans said that by holding the training sessions in Jefferson City, Cape Girardeau County leaders can focus on the disaster drills without the interruptions that would occur back home.

For three days they think of nothing but disaster. "That is a real good investment in my opinion," he said.

Evans said everyone seemed enthusiastic about the training. "The learning curve is way up on these people," he said.

Evans said the purpose of the tabletop exercise was to discover what the county could do to better respond to a major disaster. "We want them to make the mistakes now," he said.

Jones had pushed for such training. "Cape Girardeau is the guinea pig not just for the state but the nation," he said.

Until now such training was only available at FEMA headquarters in Emmittsbrg, Md., Jones said.

During Wednesday's exercise, Jones and other participants fielded telephone calls relaying information about the "disaster" and then had to work with each other to respond to the crisis.

The exercise centered around a quake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale. The "disaster" included reports of numerous collapsed buildings, including schools, the Towers high-rise dormitory complex at the university, the county courthouse and the county jail. Part of the Mississippi River bridge also collapsed in the scenario, and power was out in the entire county.

Jones said the event marked the first time that the cities of Cape Girardeau and Jackson, the university and the county had participated jointly in such a drill.