Mock Casualty Tank Car Accident to be Conducted in West Roseville May 24

A Multi Casualty Incident drill will be centered in western Roseville Thursday, May 24.

Multiple pubic safety agencies from throughout the region will participate in the exercise, which will simulate a vehicular tank accident that releases a cloud of anhydrous ammonia, a hazardous gas. The cloud of gas will drift to the northeast through parts of western Roseville, the unincorporated county and Rocklin, and leave numerous individuals and groups of casualties, including many on an overturned school bus.

Numerous fire, law enforcement and ambulance units will then arrive on scene, assess the situation, call for additional resources and begin the process of immediate care, rescue, transport, and will make a fully protected approach to stop the leaking gas from the tank car. 

Police, sheriff’s personnel, firefighters, ambulance providers, medical evacuation helicopters, emergency room staffs of all three major hospitals in the county, Kaiser-Roseville, Sutter Roseville Medical Center and Sutter-Auburn Faith, and fixed-wing aircraft of the Civil Air Patrol will participate. 

“This is a complex scenario involving two cities, the county and numerous other state and regional agencies which always translates to communications and coordination challenges.” said Rui Cunha, Placer County’s Assistant Director of Emergency Services.  “Drills like this are critical to our response agencies for maintaining readiness and the necessary skills needed for equipment and systems not used on a daily basis, for developing and sustaining relationships, and for testing new capabilities that, indeed, may prove worthy investments should increasingly scarce funding become available.”

Sponsors of the exercise are the cities of Roseville and Rocklin and Placer County, all of whose Emergency Operations Centers will be activated. Dissemination of public safety information — such as what people should do and where they should — go both for those directly affected and those potentially affected will also be tested. Other state, federal, regional and local agencies will participate in order to test agency readiness working under simulated, stressful conditions. 

Volunteers will play “victims” in roles such as acting as passengers on the overturned bus, victims overcome by the gas, and sick or injured patients air-lifted or transported by ambulance to the hospitals.