Louth National Exercise - 2nd - 4th October 2009
Louth Civil Defence hosted the first half of Exercise 2009 over the weekend of 2-4 October at the Maxol/FloGas facility on the Marsh Road in Drogheda, Co Louth. The Exercise was based on a simulated inter-agency emergency, in which a vapour cloud explosion occurred at the FloGas facility. The HSE and the Gardaí were on site. The Local Authority Controller of Operations requested that Civil Defence personnel deploy to the site and assist the Emergency Services as required.
The simulated emergency exercise was conducted on four sites:
- Boat Rescue Site – Several people either jumped or fell into the river following the explosion. Some were injured, holding navigation beacons in the river. Each Boat team had to set up communications with Control and safely search and recover casualties from the river and boats on the river using the equipment on hand.
- Fire Site – Civil Defence were requested to secure water from an open source (River Boyne) for the Drogheda Fire Service on location at FloGas fighting the fire.
- Rope Rescue Site – Maintenance fitters working on the roof of the fuel tanks at the Maxol facility were injured due to a vapour cloud explosion, which occurred at the adjacent FloGas facility. The Fire Service requested that a Civil Defence Rope Rescue team treat and rescue the casualties.
- Waste Water Treatment Site – Personnel on the complex were injured due to the blast and percussion wave from the explosion. Civil Defence was tasked with search, rescue, recovery and treatment of personnel and triage.
Link to photographs of Louth National Exercise
Link to photographs of Louth National Exercise Awards Ceremony
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