The University of Missouri’s Research Reactor has successfully completed its annual drill.
The reactor staff worked with public-safety and health professionals yesterday to simulate a scenario involving a small fire and radiation exposure to two individuals. The police and fire departments participate in the drill every other year.
The Columbia Fire Department’s Captain John Metz says involving outside agencies is important. “We can talk about how we’re going to do something and we can have a plan on paper but until we get together and actually work with other agencies,” he says, “we don’t know if it’s going to work.”
MU spokesperson Christian Basi says drills are also an important time to test internal communications at the reactor: “If we have any new people in leadership positions, especially, that they have an opportunity to interact with the people who are in the forefront in these types of incidents. In those terms this drill was very, very successful.”
Monday’s drill lasted about two hours.