A state agency is preparing to enact a mass casualty event on ASU’s Tempe campus — and University administration asked for it.

Coyote Crisis Campaign, a division of Arizona’s Department of Emergency Management, will simulate a large explosion from a domestic terrorist attack in order to test the emergency preparedness of ASU and the Valley hospitals.

“The University has never had a large disaster, and this is our chance to check its emergency system,” Department of Public Safety spokesman Lt. James Warriner said.

For almost five years, the group has staged a different emergency annually to evaluate emergency protocols of different state groups, usually police and fire departments.

ASU and 25 hospitals will be involved for the first time next month.
Scheduled for a March 10 “blow-up” date, the blast will send more than 1,200 “victims” to hospitals across the Valley.

The event is being held during spring break so it doesn’t interfere with the daily operations of the University, said ASU Assistant Chief of Police Allen Clark.

The location of the mock explosion won’t be disclosed so the event can be as real as possible, Clark said.

The method of the fake explosion — whether it is a sound or colored smoke or something else — hasn’t been finalized.

The University will work to dispel panic and confusion, keep track of all injured and to which hospitals they are taken and connect victims with their families.

The wounded, ranging from minor walking injuries to fatalities, will pour into hospitals seeking care. Hospitals will have to track and treat victims, as well as collect and preserve evidence and deal with mock media.

Michael Wong, director of Career Services for ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication on the downtown Phoenix campus, is seeking student journalists to aid in the experiment.

“They’re going to be asking questions of emergency workers, law enforcement, hospital workers, ASU officials,” Wong said. “I think it will be a really worthwhile exercise for developing reporters.”

Coyote Crisis Campaign will also use this as an opportunity to test a new handheld tracking device and other new technology, Warriner said.

“There is new technology in place each year,” Warriner said. “If we have a real, live event, we have to know how things [would] operate and if they work.”

ASU’s former emergency policy executive expressed interest in hosting the project in January 2008, and since then the campaign has formulated the intricate plan.

Police and fire departments from the federal, state, county and local levels will participate.

Warriner said even though the agencies being tested — police, fire, hospitals — are aware of emergencies, they often aren’t as prepared as expected.

“You’d be surprised [at] what comes out of it. There are a lot of things that just don’t run smoothly,” he said. “But we do these experiments to improve the response to deadly situations.”

The Arizona Department of Public Safety is seeking 1,200 volunteers 12 and older, to act as mock victims after the fake explosive detonation
The cost of the event is unknown, but it will be funded by a grant, and state and federal funds. Volunteers are used to lessen the expense.

“The cost will be very economical for how large this event will be,” Clark said. “And learning about ASU’s process of response during crisis is invaluable.”

Reach the reporter at tessa.muggeridge@asu.edu.