> catches on fire, which sends plumes of smoke billowing into the city. The events trigger a chain of planned responder reactions, starting with a 911 call from a local CHS New Horizons employee to report the train derailment. Months of Planning Planning and organizing the exercise took a year to put into place, says Dona Greiner, emergency management director at Stevens County and lead coordinator of the exercise. “We conducted a hazard analysis for the county in 2012 that showed we needed to be better prepared,” Greiner says. “So we planned this exercise and wanted it to be as realistic as possible. It truly helped prepare us for the worst day we could imagine.” The drill included nearly 100 agencies and groups — fire, ambulance, Red Cross, Salvation Army, University of Minnesota and many others — to practice how to contain and secure a mock emergency site, explains Evan Fust, safety manager for CHS Country Operations. As owner of the rail track off the main line, CHS was involved in planning and executing the day’s activities. “This could easily be a real-life disaster scenario,” says Fust. “And we know it takes a lot of coordination with all of the groups involved.” were taken to the Stevens Community Medical Center, where volunteers practiced a lock-down and patient evacuation. The Minnesota Mobile Medical Team was brought in to handle the overflow. Even the University of Minnesota-Morris activated its emergency operations center to coordinate campus response to the mock disaster. Safety Comes First “As a cooperative, CHS is invested in the safety of the communities where it operates,” says Fust. “We bring products into these communities that could be hazardous, so we want to learn as much as we can from these exercises. In this situation, it was a rail line that CHS regularly uses for its grain facility.” Since CHS employees often are integral parts of local volunteer fire departments, training exercises are critical to maintaining safe working environments. “A perfect example right here in Stevens County is that the emergency manager’s husband is an employee at the CHS elevator,” says Fust, who was involved in another exercise in Faulkton, S.D., where a mock anhydrous ammonia accident was staged. “These are good drills, because there is much to be learned,” he says. “This is the time to work out the kinks; not during a real emergency.” Help on the Way Firefighters executed an evacuation drill for businesses and homes in the town of more than 5,000 residents. About 35 volunteers played victims with mock injuries, using makeup and fake blood, to help train local emergency medical services (EMS) and paramedics on how to triage and treat patients in an emergency. In this case, Fust says, victims To help the disaster experience hit home, volunteers in this exercise used fake blood to prepare responders to deal with potential real-life situations. 14 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 CHSINC.COM