August 18, 2006

UCSD, Area Groups Will Test Response to Terror Attack

By Paul K. Mueller

The University of California San Diego will test its response to a terrorist attack on Tuesday, Aug. 22, an exercise that will coincide with a larger drill being organized by San Diego’s Metropolitan Medical Strike Team (MMST).

Rehearsing their collaborative responses to a potential on-campus crisis, teams from the city of San Diego, San Diego County, and UC San Diego will conduct a disaster drill from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in and around Atkinson Hall on campus.

The exercise will be similar in scale to last year’s MMST exercise held at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, and will involve public-safety personnel from MMST, city and county fire and police departments, SWAT, hazardous-materials teams, Medical Response System personnel, researchers from the UC San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), the UCSD Medical Center Department of Emergency Medicine, and other university groups.

While first-responders practice urban-terrorism and chemical-spill responses, the campus will test medical- and emergency-response technologies such as the Wireless Internet Information Systems for Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD) and the Response to Crises and Unexpected Events (RESCUE) – systems developed by physicians and engineers working on Calit2 projects.

Campus leaders, including Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, will direct the university’s response, in coordination with county and city officials, from an emergency operations center, supported by the campus police department, Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) staff, senior administrators, and university communications personnel.

An adjacent parking lot will become a staging area for medical responses and for incident command. Volunteers acting as victims will undergo treatment for mock injuries at this site, and first-response leaders will direct the coordinated activities.

The incident command post, medical triage tents, decontamination areas, and a media tent will be set up near Atkinson Hall. Some parts of campus will be closed to the public to facilitate the drill, but signs will direct interested media crews to supervised areas for filming and interviews.

Media Contact: Paul K. Mueller, 858-534-8564