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National homeland security drill planned week of May 12

Emergency Management Alert, May 7, 2003

Beginning May 12, federal officials plan to run what they say is the largest homeland security drill in U.S. history, the Washington Post reports.

Called TOPOFF 2 (for top officials), the $16 million exercise will involve more than 100 federal, state, and local agencies, the American Red Cross, and Canadian government agencies and organizations. The drill will test the response to widely dispersed, almost simultaneous terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction.

About 8,500 people will participate in the exercise, which will include a fictional dirty bomb explosion in Seattle and a biological attack in the Chicago area. Participants will include governors, mayors, county executives, and other elected officials, medical personnel, and first responders. In additional, hundreds of evaluators will watch the unfolding events and report their findings on the response for later study.

Lessons learned from the exercise will not be made public to prevent potential adversaries from accessing the information. No real weapons will be used to simulate the attacks, and the scenario in the drill is not based on any U.S. intelligence findings.

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