N.J., Conn. Conduct (Large) Anti-Terrorism Drills

Netscape Network /AP ^ | 4-4-05 | By WAYNE PARRY

[M. Espinola]

HILLSIDE, N.J. (AP) - The biggest anti-terrorism drill ever held in the United States got under way Monday with a mock biological attack in New Jersey and a simulated chemical-weapons explosion in Connecticut.

Named TOPOFF 3, the $16 million, weeklong exercise is meant to find weak spots in the nation's emergency planning. ``I want to make it clear that we are going to push our plans and our systems to the very limit,'' U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

Emergency workers in hazardous material suits walk among mock rubble during Top Officials 3 (TOPOFF 3)

The biological attack drill started in New Jersey at the Hillside campus of Kean University with officers swarming around the scene of a mock auto wreck.

Doctors tried to connect the incident to a patient who had been admitted to a hospital with ``flu-like symptoms.'' More ``victims'' of the supposed biological attack headed to emergency rooms & state health officials started zeroing in on pneumonic plague as the likely cause.

In Connecticut, federal officials staged a mock chemical weapons explosion on the New London waterfront. Buses were overturned to create a realistic scene, and volunteers played victims of the attack.

A US soldier is sprayed with water by an emergency worker during a drill simulating a chemical attack. US security officials are set to begin a five-day exercise that simulates chemical and biological terrorist attacks in the eastern US states of Connecticut and New Jersey.(AFP/File/Luke Frazza)

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More than 8,500 people took part in similar exercises in Seattle and Chicago in 2003.

[sarah_f]

Screw operation TOSSOFF and just get rid of the muslims in Jersey. Do you enjoy waiting to die?

[sarah_f]

Stupid GDF idiots. If you took care of the problem, you wouldn't have to worry about cleanup.

[stylin19a]

Shouldn't that be a "terrorism drill" ?

[M. Espinola]

Maybe because two states were involved?