PICAYUNE —
Amateur radio operators got a bit of unexpected practice during their annual exercise.
Saturday night four local Amateur radio operators set up camp at the Mississippi Welcome Center off Interstate 59 to conduct their yearly Amateur Radio Relay League exercise.
“It hones our skills to go out, build antennas and erect them,” said Pearl River County Amateur Radio Club Treasurer Roger Aubert.
Aubert said he and three other members of the club were at the welcome center in the middle of a broadcast, along with other radio clubs across the nation and in Canada, when a truck driver knocked on the door of the county’s Emergency Management mobile command center they were working out of at about 11 p.m.
The truck driver had stopped at the welcome center for a break, and after his break did a safety inspection of his cargo, which consisted of hazardous chemicals. During that inspection the driver noticed one of the chemicals he was carrying was leaking, Pearl River County Emergency Management Director Danny Manley said.
After the driver notified Aubert and the other radio operators of the situation the radio operators and welcome center security called 911, and used an emergency response handbook on hand to determine what the best course of action should be. In this case Aubert said the handbook advised them to get everyone 100 feet away from the leaking container.
“It could have been worse but everything worked smoothly,” Aubert said.
Manley said the Nicholson Volunteer Fire Department came to the scene to set up evacuation zones, Picayune Fire Department sent out their Hazmat team to recon the situation and the trucking company sent out a cleanup crew. Manley said he called the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Service who also provided cleanup and remediation of the chemical.
Two chemicals were being stored on the truck at the time of the leak, Trimethylbenzene and Nitrobytyl Morpholine, which Manley said could have created a violent reaction, since one contains Chlorine and the other is a petroleum based product.
Amateur radio operators conduct the exercises to keep their skills honed, which come in useful during major disasters that cause most forms of communication to fail, as they did during Hurricane Katrina, Aubert said. Saturday’s exercise added an extra component to their training, Aubert said.
“It was a good exercise for us...,” Aubert said. “That was a pop quiz that no body told me about.”
Manley said the situation was resolved by about 4:30 Sunday morning and involved no injuries.
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