April 17, 2007
Nuclear bomb exercise will test region's response
More than 3,000 troops, police officers will participate in simulation this month
By Will Higgins
will.higgins@indystar.com
April 17, 2007
Indiana's homeland security readiness will be tested later this month with the simulated detonation of a nuclear bomb somewhere in the Hoosier state, the U.S. Northern Command said.
The event will trigger the deployment of 1,000 Indiana National Guard troops, more than 2,000 active-duty military personnel, local and state police officers, and other officials.
The action will take place at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Jennings County and Camp Atterbury in Johnson County.
The nuclear scenario will be played out from April 30 to May 18. It is one of three such tests that will be held simultaneously. The others are a hurricane in Rhode Island and a terrorist attack in Alaska. Such tests are held twice a year by the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Canadian Department of National Defence.
"They're designed to test what are our weak spots so we can start fixing holes," said Lt. Cmdr. Sean Kelly, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command, which was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to coordinate the armed services' response to internal attacks and disasters.
Kelly declined to provide details of the exercises, because it would give the responders an unrealistic advantage.
A U.S. Government Accountability Office report issued in January projected that if terrorists were to detonate a 10-kiloton nuclear device in a large city, the surrounding 3,000 square miles would be contaminated, 450,000 people would need to be evacuated, and there would be "hundreds of billions of dollars in economic impact."
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