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.

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.

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.

<!--

-----------