Saturday, September 8, 2007

Boston Anthrax Drill, Russia UK "Cold war games" etc..









MA





Unknowing Residents To Take Part In Terror Drill
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/14068248/detail.html

BOSTON -- About 23,000 Boston residents are weeks away from taking part in a bioterror drill, and many probably don't even know it.
Health officials plan to have mail carriers deliver tiny white cardboard boxes to the doorsteps and mailboxes of thousands of residents in the city's West Roxbury and South End neighborhoods on Sunday, Sept. 23.
"Anytime you are talking about a release of anthrax in the city, you are talking about pretty much a worst case scenario where you need to get medications to people as quickly as possible," said John Jacob of the Boston Public Health Commission.
The empty boxes will be used to simulate how quickly antibiotics could be delivered to residents in the event of a bioterror attack.
"No one knows the streets, knows the deliveries, knows where the houses are and the sequence they are set up in better than letter carriers do," said Bob Cannon of the U.S. Postal Service.
In the event of a real emergency when the antibiotics are highly coveted, the mail carriers will have a police escort.
"There is no emergency whatsoever. This is just a test, and this is a way for us to figure out if this particular delivery option is a good fit for Boston," Jacob said.
If it were a real emergency, each box would hold 20 pills.





Navy personnel Thursday carry an "injured" man from the scene during a mass-casualty drill on Normandy Road near West Front Street
COLTS NECK — The simulated scenario at Naval Weapons Station Earle was the aftermath of a chemical weapons attack involving a truck carrying chlorine gas and its intended target, an ordnance-filled military train.
So, early Thursday morning members of the Monmouth County Office of Emergency Management, county Prosecutor's Office, county hazardous-materials unit, State Police and state Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness gathered at the corner of West Front Street and Normandy Road, the 15-mile military thoroughfare.
All were on site for Earle's mass casualty drill, an all-day exercise to assess the military base's preparedness level and its ability to successfully coordinate with the local and state emergency authorities, base spokesman Patrick Fisher said.
"This will be unfolding without a lot of people knowing (the details)," Fisher said before the drill. "Only about 15 to 20 people know the scenario." (Cont..)

County to hold disaster drill Saturday
http://www.wiscnews.com/pdr/news/223415

Emergency personnel will respond to a major emergency Saturday morning. Fortunately for Portage residents, it will be only a simulation.
The situation area officials planned for is a massive simulation engineered by Canadian Pacific Railway, Columbia County Emergency Management and a number of other local, state and federal agencies. Saturday's event is a simulation and not an actual emergency — something officials want to make very clear to Portage residents.
The nature of the emergency in the simulation is not being released so that participants can't anticipate events. (Cont..)

Russia plays Cold War games
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22380542-2703,00.html

THE RAF scrambled to intercept eight Russian nuclear bombers heading for Britain yesterday in the biggest aerial confrontation between the two countries since the end of the Cold War.
The Tupolev-95 Bear bombers were approaching in formation when they were met by four Tornado F3 fighter jets.
Defence sources said the Russian pilots turned away as soon as they spotted the approaching Tornados and did not enter British airspace.
Norway had earlier sent four F16 jets to shadow the Russians as they neared its airspace in what Moscow insisted was a training mission.
The bombers had flown over international waters from the Barents Sea to the Atlantic before heading for Britain. (Cont..)

Langley planes to be grounded
http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/hampton/dp-18333sy0sep07,0,3949434.story

LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE - Planes at Langley Air Force Base will be grounded Sept. 14 in response to an incident last week when a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for three hours across several states.The stand-down was ordered by Air Combat Command and includes all jet fighters and bombers in the Air Force. The command, headquartered at Langley, oversees all of the service's fighters and bombers.Planes in Iraq and Afghanistan and planes participating in air shows this weekend are not affected by the stand-down. (Cont..)