Lessons for US cities from antiterror drills

When a sharp explosion rang out across a grungy Seattle warehouse district this week, and moon-suited firefighters rushed to rescue actors spattered with fake blood, it started the biggest homeland-security "war game" ever staged in the US - and underscored the importance of mock exercises in helping the nation gird for any new terror attack.

Just as NATO used to roll its tanks across Europe in fictional battles with Soviet troops, domestic war games are proliferating in the post-9/11 era. Soon, first responders and local officials in cities across the country may be battling mock dirty bombs or bio-terror attacks. Critics worry about straining precious resources. Yet already the exercises have helped define or refine key terror-fighting lessons:

• In the wake of a bioterror attack, for instance, officials might be tempted to impose quarantines. But drills suggest they're risky - and can spark civilian violence against authorities.

• A mock smallpox attack helped persuade policymakers that millions of vaccine doses needed to be manufactured - and that healthcare workers should be preemptively protected from any outbreaks.

• Volunteers are sometimes more crucial to providing a good response than, say, gun-toting national guardsmen. For instance, legions of trained volunteers would be key to distributing medicines after a bio-terror attack.

All in all, "There's no better, more cost-effective way to train and educate all the stakeholders involved in responding to terrorism," says Phil Anderson, a homeland-security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

This week's federally funded exercise - called TOPOFF2 - is expected to cost $16 million. It involves local and state officials, some 14 federal agencies, the Red Cross, and about 8,500 people.

The simulation fictionalizes a two-pronged attack - in Seattle and Chicago - by GLODO, the Group for the Liberation of Orangeland and the Destruction of Others.

In Seattle, the terrorists detonated a "dirty bomb" within view of the Space Needle and the giant orange cranes at the city's seaport - real-life examples of Seattle's high-value terror targets. Volunteer "victims" had to be decontaminated - sometimes with frigid water from fire hydrants - before being whisked to hospitals.

The dramatic action even incorporated a few high schoolers.

At a community center in a nearby neighborhood, high schooler Anh Nguyen is a "victim" who's clad in a white jumpsuit, having just been decontaminated - which, for the exercise, entailed standing in a kiddie pool while workers pretended to "scrub" her. She was told to play a single mom who can't speak English. Her 5-year-old daughter - played by her real-life high school friend Chau Nguyen - has to translate. The role-playing simulates the confusion and chaos that emergency workers have to navigate in such events.

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