IMAAC enhances DTRA reachback capabilities

Photo By Ann Fox | DTRA's IMAAC (Interagency Modeling and Atmospheric Advisory Center) modelers coordinate with a variety of federal agencies to provide real-time predictions of the size, type and hazards of any plume resulting from incidents involving hazardous chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosives.  

FORT BELVOIR, VA, UNITED STATES

08.28.2013

Story by Anne Marek 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

FORT BELVOIR, Va. - Shortly after national news organizations began reporting that an explosion took place at the Williams Olefins Chemical Plant 25 miles south of Baton Rouge, La., at 9:37 a.m. local time June 13 the men and women at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Interagency Modeling and Atmospheric Advisory Center Technical Operations Hub knew it was going to be a busy morning.

A little more than two hours into the incident, the Department of Homeland Security National Operations Center called to activate the IMAAC in response to the event, requesting a plume model to chart the path, type and consequences of any hazardous-material releases caused by the cocktail of chemicals being produced at the plant.

Just as the National Weather Service is the single voice for all weather modeling and predictions for meteorologists throughout the country, IMAAC serves as a the single federal government source for the coordination and dissemination of dispersion modeling and hazard prediction products during actual or potential incidents involving hazardous chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive releases.

“There are many agencies and groups within the government that have modeling tools and techniques to predict where hazardous material may go during an incident and how many people may be affected,” said Andy Grose, Ph.D., DTRA Technical Reachback. “The IMAAC is in place to try to harness all of these efforts into a single means of distributing information to the first responders who will need it.”

IMAAC gathers specific information such as the latitude and longitude of the event, the type of event (explosion, train derailment, nuclear power plant incident), and the known amounts and types of chemicals or materials present during the event.

The modelers then coordinate with an alphabet soup of federal agencies to provide real-time predictions of the size, type and hazards of any plume resulting from the incident.

For the event in Louisiana, DTRA Reachback coordinated with DHS, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 6 to ensure any possible chemical threat from the blast was communicated down to local responders on scene at the plant, and to the local populace within the plume’s path.

Of the IMAAC/Reachback relationship, Grose said,” IMAAC has been an interesting addition to the Reachback workload. With IMAAC, there is a much more scripted response required and for the first time, analysts must make use of a checklist and ensure that government personnel are on board within 30 minutes to supervise the response whenever IMAAC is activated.”

The Louisiana blast happened on the heels of a similar explosion that IMAAC modelers worked two months prior – the fertilizer plant explosion in the small Texas town of West that killed 15 people and caused an estimated $100 million in damage – so it was critical that information about the Louisiana explosion be generated and released in a timely manner and passed to all concerned.

“This is a mission that we fully embrace and give a high priority,” said Grose. “It certainly fits very well into the scope of what DTRA and DTRA Reachback are capable of. The trick has been to integrate everybody into a new procedure and make sure everyone fully understands the mission and that we are potentially supporting people who are responsible for saving lives.”

DTRA has performed 21 activations since it took on the role of the IMAAC Technical Operations hub. The primary customer has been U.S. Department of Homeland Security National Operations Center senior watch officers who monitor open source reporting for incidents and activate IMAAC based on reports of potentially hazardous atmospheric releases.

The quickest way to contact IMAAC in an emergency is to call the DTRA/SCC-WMD/HQ-E Joint Operations Center - http://dtra.mil/Missions/Reachback/OPSCenter.aspx - which will connect the caller with Reachback/IMAAC, while taking note of the incident details.

• Date Taken: 08.28.2013
• Date Posted: 08.28.2013 12:29
• Story ID: 112752
• Location: FORT BELVOIR, VA, US