Photo feature: Practicing for disaster

Published 12:13 am Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Ben Hillyer/The Natchez Democrat — A Geiger counter sit inside one of the designated decontamination areas as Ann Thornhill suits up for the emergency drill Monday evening.

It felt like the real thing for Ann Thornhill as she was taped up in a hazardous material suit for the Grand Gulf Material Ingestion Exercise at Natchez High School Monday evening. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency were on site to review the emergency drill performed by area emergency responders. Adams County is one of the four host counties that could potentially receive individuals from Claiborne County and surrounding areas contaminated in the event of a nuclear accident at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station north of Port Gibson. In such an event, the reception center at Natchez High School could receive up to 3,700 people. The job of the reception center will be to check individuals for signs of radioactivity and then decontaminate anyone who has been determined to be “dirty.”

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