Robert L. Jeffries
Radiological Training Officer
New Hampshire Office of Emergency Management
107 Pleasant Street
Concord, New Hampshire 03301
ABSTRACT
One of the greatest obstacles to educating the community in emergency response preparedness, is overcoming the excessive fear of nuclear power. Just over fifty years ago, this fear began when the world saw the awesome and fearsome power of the atomic bomb. The fear associated with nuclear weapons has improperly become associated with "anything nuclear". This has produced an unhealthy fear. Our citizens must have a healthy respect for the risk/reward ratio associated with nuclear power and ionizing radiation. This produces a base from which productive dialog can take place between the state and the community, enabling the community to eventually deal with a radiological incident in an informed and educated manner.
INTRODUCTION
The New Hampshire Office of Emergency Management Radiological Emergency Response Plan (RERP) Training Program has been in development for over ten years. During this time we have trained nearly twenty thousand students throughout New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont.
We have successfully transformed an area which was in constant turmoil with protests, demonstrations and disruptions of all kinds into a professional emergency response organization made up of dedicated professionals and civilian volunteers. We have accomplished this with patience, understanding the position and feelings of the citizenry and a dedication to our goal of establishing a program to adequately protect the citizens of our state by compliance with federal guidelines and state law.
The objectives of this paper are: 1) to explain the process used in New Hampshire to determine a community's perceived risk of ionizing radiation and nuclear power, remove misconceptions and unfounded fears through sound education and training. 2) to describe the training program which was developed in order to perform this process.
How to Determine the Community's Perceived Risk of Ionizing Radiation and Nuclear Power
The only way to do this is by getting face to face with the people in the community and talking to them. This is the only way you will understand where their concerns are and where their comfort zone is.
I am usually in a classroom setting, talking to emergency responders who we are trying to recruit to participate in our Radiological Emergency Response Organization.
Let us suppose that we are going to teach a group of 30 school bus drivers. We want to recruit them to be drivers in an evacuation of the emergency planning zone around the nuclear power plant. Most of the drivers are women. The drivers range in age from early twenties to possibly late fifties. One of the drivers is talking loudly and has the attention of her coworkers over by the coffee pot. We hear this driver say, "I've had all this radiological stuff in the army. Its simple, if you're near it-RUN!" Everyone laughs and nod their heads in agreement. This is individual has set the atmosphere for the class. An atmosphere of apprehension and fear. As instructor , I have to set the atmosphere not the students. So I speak to the person who indicated some knowledge of radiation and ask for her input during the class. This will make her comments answers to my questions and inquires of the class, thus putting me back in control .
It is imperative to get control of a possibly disruptive individual and use this person's opinions and knowledge to your advantage. Treat the individual with respect and never embarrass them with questions which would make them look stupid. Remember that this person has influence with the class, and you have not earned your influence yet.
The first portion of the class explains the purpose of our Radiological Emergency Response Plan and how the attendees would be utilized in an emergency response. I go on to explain that this is basically a hazardous materials accident. It may result in ionizing radiation being release into the air. As protection from this possible hazard we issue radiation detection devices called dosimeters.
Well, what is radiation and how does it hurt us? Most people have no clue. The most basic concepts must be explained . People can relate with ionization and know about Radon. They know it is dangerous. When told it comes from the uranium which is in the granite, they are interested.
Once people start to see a clearer picture of the everyday exposures to ionizing radiation, they get more interested in the class and somewhat less fearful of this hazard.
Explain that alpha radiation is what causes their smoke detector to work, and is in the smoke they inhale from cigarettes. That beta radiation is in the Coleman mantle they used camping, the product "No Salt" for salt free diets and the orange Fiesta Ware they buy at the flea market on weekends. And that gamma radiation is most like the X Ray they receive at the dentist. I have found all these simple examples to be earth shattering revelations to ninety percent of my students.
In explaining exposure limits, I explain the general rule is, 200 rem acute exposure will cause 1 person out of 10 to show signs of radiation sickness. This makes the allowable exposure limits of 5 rem and 20 rem appear less ominous. I also explain how the exposures for radiation therapy for cancer compare to these exposures. Many of my students have had this therapy and add comments about their experiences. My whole goal is make the thought of being exposed to radiation less threatening.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established justifiable exposure limits for emergency responders to ionizing radiation for non-life saving accidents is 5 rem (5000mR) and the justifiable exposure limit for life saving accidents is 25 rem (25000mR). These exposure limits apply to all firefighters, police and emergency medical technicians in New Hampshire when responding to any incident involving ionizing radiation. Easily ninety percent of all emergency responders I teach are not aware of these limits even existing yet alone know what they are. I would wager the people in you states are equally ignorant of these exposure limits. It is necessary for these emergency workers to understand the potential risks they face, know that instruments are needed to be able to detect the hazard and how to use them. But most of all they need to have a good understanding of the actual danger they are facing. They find that this is several times less than the danger they had previously thought they would be facing.
Defining the Radiological Emergency Response Plan (RERP)
The process of developing a emergency response organization to protect the citizens around the nuclear power plant was very complex and labor intensive. It requires the cooperation and coordination of federal, state and local governments as well as the licensee. The initial criteria was provided through the federal publication NUREG-0654/FEMA-REP-1 and further strengthened by state law RSA 107. The federal guidance outlined required planning objectives for both facilities and personnel. The state law mandated the governor and the director of the Office of Emergency Management to develop and implement an emergency response plan to protect the citizens within the emergency planning zone of a nuclear power plant.
With the planning criteria and objectives defined, we now could determine the various emergency response functions needed for all state and local organizations. Once the emergency response functions were defined, the emergency response positions could be identified to perform the requires functions. The emergency response positions determined who the people were that needed to be trained to carry out the emergency response functions. A similar process was used to determine the required facilities and resources needed. Assemble all these pieces and you now have a plan. The New Hampshire Radiological Emergency Response Plan(RERP) consists of fifty volumes. This covers two nuclear power plants( Seabrook Station and Vermont Yankee), all the state agencies, twenty two emergency planning zone communities and four host communities.
Development of the Training Program
The training program needed to consist of :
- frequency
- priority
- refresher training
- participant handouts
- attendance sheets, evaluation forms
The New Hampshire RERP training program is designed to provide regularly scheduled training to all organizations that comprise the New Hampshire Emergency Response Organization. The training is offered annually and more frequently if significant changes are implemented in the RERP or if deficiencies in the emergency response capability are discovered. The training program is based on modules which provide training on all the responsibilities referred to in the New Hampshire RERP. Each module focuses on the procedures and related plan sections for a task performed to support a response to a radiological emergency. All organizations and individuals with responsibilities under the RERP are offered the opportunity to attend training on their specific tasks. The training matrix identifies the modules that each audience should receive in its training session.
The module system allows for flexibility in the presentation of training. With each module covering a basic concept, by assembling the concepts necessary for the target audience you are able to put together your class material.
The instructor development focused on putting together a staff of adjunct instructors from existing training organizations i.e. fire instructors, bus driver instructors, police, emergency medical service etc. I then trained them to present our program to their peer groups. This resolved countless issues which had been problems. I now had an experienced instructor, known by the audience, who could relate to their concerns and present our material in a way which I could not. The results were an immediate increase in attendance, understanding, retention and performance.
The attendance record is compared to the required emergency response positions listed in the plan to ensure the key personnel are trained. If persons for key positions were missing from a particular organization, either another training session needed to be scheduled or someone who had been in the class was assigned to the key position needing the trained person. *Note-Training is offered to all organizations on an annual basis, but, attendance is not required. This means we have to fill key positions with the people who show up for training.
The training is scheduled at the convenience of the organization being targeted for training. We train anytime, anywhere. We don't have scheduling conflicts, I just find additional instructors to cover the classes. We have taught up to five classes simultaneously in five different communities. This does eliminate excuses for not being trained though. It is the Emergency Management Director or Emergency Planning Coordinator of a given organization who is responsible to call and schedule training. If I have not heard from them or things are slow, I will call them to schedule dates for training. On average, we train approximately 2000 students annually for RERP.
Once in the classroom the instructor is on his/her own. I train my instructors in various ways to deal with troublesome students and difficult questions. The fact that most of my instructors are seasoned professionals in their own fields resolves most of the problems, however, now and then a difficult question or situation may arise. The instructors are taught how to answer "difficult questions" in our train-the-trainer course. By providing the new instructor with the correct answers to those loaded questions, which have been asked by anti-nuclear activists in our classes over the years, it can defuse a situation before it begins. If a question is asked that is new to the instructor, they are taught to say, "I don't know the answer to that but let me find out and get back to you." This maintains their integrity and trust. Our main goal is to ensure the students leave the class feeling that all their concerns have had an opportunity to be heard and hopefully addressed. Because the majority of our Emergency Response Organization is volunteer and not mandated to respond, I want to make sure they are comfortable about participating in the RERP. If they don't want to be there, we don't want them there. This has not been a problem.
In addition to the classroom training the organizations also go through drills and exercises annually. The drills are an opportunity to have hands-on training. The facilities are set up and staffed, procedures used, communication networks utilized. This provides everyone an opportunity to see the emergency response organization in action. Through the use of a scenario and controllers, a simulated disaster unfolds before the participants and they must use the plan and their procedures to respond to it. In a drill, controllers act also as instructors to address questions and concerns of the participating response organization. An exercise differs from a drill in that it is a test of the emergency response organization. Usually, federal government evaluators are present to grade the organization on how well it complies with the plan and federal guidance standards. We will address in training any problem areas pointed out after the graded exercise. And the whole process begins again.
The major difference in the students now is that they have had an opportunity to see the big picture and have a better understanding of what it is we are trying to accomplish. They have experienced personal problems and resolved them. They have seen how this affects their community and their family. They have seen people from outside their community work hard to assist them when they could not help themselves. They have learned the meaning and value of teamwork. They have become believers and know that we (the state) are not their adversaries. We really do want to help them.
Another beautiful thing happens to these volunteer emergency responders. They begin to wonder. They begin to think. Next thing you know they are asking questions of themselves such as, "What if.. this had been a hurricane? How would we have responded differently??" This is when you know you have done your job. This is truly payday, because, the volunteer emergency responders have realized this is their plan.