Terror exercise is all set to BLAST Portland on Tuesday (Like the headline?)

[Flabbergasted]

http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/10/terror_exercise_is_all_set_to.html

Terror exercise is all set to blast Portland on Tuesday
Posted by The Oregonian October 15, 2007 06:37AM
Categories: Breaking News, Portland


The bomb's in place. The terrorists are ready. The city waits.

As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, a lethal cloak of radiation will cover much of downtown Portland.

It's all make-believe, of course. But this week the city will be ground zero for the largest counterterrorism exercise in U.S. history.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will be in town to personally oversee the exercise, with the help of Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Mayor Tom Potter. In all, more than 15,000 people from 275 organizations will be involved. Every emergency agency in the Portland area, along with 14 hospitals and David Douglas High School, will play parts in an event dubbed "Topoff 4."

snip

Portland's fake bomb is staged to detonate on the Steel Bridge. But a grassy patch covered with banged-up cars, debris and a mock-up of the bridge near Portland International Raceway will stand in for downtown. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives will discharge an explosive at the site -- mostly for TV cameras.

Firefighters and police arriving at the site Tuesday will encounter lingering smoke and chaos, with as many as 350 actors in makeup playing injured and contaminated victims and, possibly, terrorists. As real journalists from around the world watch from a distance, fake reporters with the "Virtual News Network" will swarm the scene.


And the role-playing won't stop there. Chertoff, Kulongoski, Potter and Multnomah County Chairman Ted Wheeler also will behave as if the blast is the real thing.

Only the basic scenario is spelled out ahead of time, as other cities that have scrambled to keep up during past exercises have learned. State and city officials say they expect to be thrown a lot of curveballs.

[tekisui]

1. What a bunch of bullshit.

Do they really NEED to set off an explosion and run around for the cameras. It's sickening, really.

[BellaB]

2. I think its more

for the realism of the smoke, dust, and debris the first responders will come across if the real thing were to happen. You have to train, train, train, and keep training in case the unthinkable does happen.

[Flabbergasted]

3. Despite this...Couldn't they just let the bomb off at the raceway....

Steelbridge is the biggest public transportation bridge in Portland. The entire purpose is for the cameras? WTF.

Anyway it's all mute. They're going to do it.

[BellaB]

4. How would

setting it off at the raceway simulate real world conditions?

Thats the whole idea behind setting it off at the bridge. You have to train in real world conditions so you know what to expect if your ever called out.

[Flabbergasted]

5. Like the article says:

The explosion is for the cameras. ALL the training is at the raceway.

[SDuderstadt]

7. I think you mean....

"moot", not "mute"

[Flabbergasted]

9. What?

Can't hear ya.

[Parche]

6. PDX

And I will just work here, and protest if we need to............


More scare tactics for the people
:hi:

[sce56]

8. I suppose it is a good thing this was preposted unlike the drills held on 911 in NY and in London

in March 2004 both times as the authorities were in the middle of or preparing for a drill when the real thing happened!

n early 2001, at the start of Mr. Bush's presidency, his Government's Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) warned that a hurricane hitting New Orleans would be the deadliest of the three most likely catastrophes facing America; the others were a massive San Francisco earthquake and, prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York.
FEMA was in New York
the Night Before 9/11

Click for a RealAudio recording of a statement made by FEMA spokesman Tom Kenney to Dan Rather on Wednesday, September 12th, 2001. In this interview, Kenney states that FEMA was deployed to New York on Monday night, September 10th, to be ready to go into action on Tuesday morning, September 11th.

Kenney: "We're currently one of the first teams that was deployed to support the city of New York for this disaster. We arrived on late Monday night, and went into action on Tuesday morning. And not until today did we get a full opportunity to work the entire site."

Needless to say, this recording caused quite a stir. The official reaction was Kenney was simply confused about the dates.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has said it did not have urban search and rescue teams in place in New York City prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, contrary to an Internet-based rumor alleging otherwise. ... FEMA officials said Kenney, in the heat of the moment, misstated his team's arrival date.

However, on the recording Kenney is complaining about not getting full access to the site until "today". Kenney talks about a Monday, a Tuesday, and "today". That's three days.

If the above recording was made on Wednesday, September 12th as claimed, then the explanation that Kenney was simply confused about the days doesn't work, because there is one more day than can be accounted for.

Some news sources went to great lengths to dismiss Kenney's remarks...
Information provided through FOIA requests ... show that FEMA had no personnel in place Sept. 10, 2001 - the day before Sept. 11, 2001 - which would have suggested the agency had prior knowledge of the terrorist attacks.

"This interview took place sometime on the 13th, two full days after all hell had broken loose," said, noting that she has an audio copy of Rather's interview. "Kenney sounds winded on the audio as if he had been exerting himself. It is more than likely Kenney, having worked virtually nonstop since his arrival in NYC, had his days run together, and his statement simply came out wrong."

...but the cover story was blown when Rudolph Guliani testified before the 9/11 Commission:

Long Debunked "Rumor" Validated by Giuliani

FEMA in NYC prior to 9-11 for Project TRIPOD terror drill, scheduled for 9-12

As of this writing, June 2, 2004, the transcript of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's testimony to the 9-11 Commission during the May 18-19, 2004 hearings in New York is the only transcript of that hearing omitted from the Commission website
(http://www.9-11commission.gov).

Did Rudy say something wrong?

"... the reason Pier 92 was selected as a command center was because on the next day, on September 12, Pier 92 was going to have a drill, it had hundreds of people here, from FEMA, from the Federal Government, from the State, from the State Emergency Management Office, and they were getting ready for a drill for biochemical attack. So that was gonna be the place they were going to have the drill. The equipment was already there, so we were able to establish a command center there, within three days, that was two and a half to three times bigger than the command center that we had lost at 7 World Trade Center. And it was from there that the rest of the search and rescue effort was completed."

Major questions exist as to why FEMA would deny being in New York City prior to 9/11 without mentioning the 9/12 bioterror drill. These questions must now be addressed as the initial suspicions of those who learned of the Tom Kenney statement have been clearly validated. The coincidental presence of a large FEMA team in NYC at the location, Pier 92, which became the Command Center for the entire emergency operation is disturbing. An alert press and a legitimate 9-11 Commission should have raised this issue long ago.