How long would it take to entirely evacuate the nation’s capital in the event of a disaster? The District of Columbia Department of Transportation is looking to a New York firm to find out.
Using a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, DDOTrecently awarded a $300,000 contract to Commack, N.Y.-based KLD Associates Inc. to develop an “evacuation timing model to further support its evacuation planning efforts,” said Erik Linden, DDOT spokesman. KLD will evaluate and estimate evacuation times during an emergency, Linden said.
KLD specializes in using computer simulation models to solve transportation problems, according to the firm’s Web site. It has developed evacuation plans for 17 jurisdictions near nuclear power stations, including Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and studied how to respond to a chemical weapons emergency in Aberdeen, Md.
But whatever the study finds, one observer of the daily commuter snarl into and out of the District said it’s unrealistic to expect implementation of the results.
“As somebody who’s been downtown during a number of events, I’ve experienced firsthand the chaos of an evacuation attempt,” said Terry Lynch, executive director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations. “However, while it’s useful to have these models, practically speaking it’s going to be a lot of money with few realistic results to show for it. It’s just reality. You cannot train hundreds of thousands of folks. The best you can do is train your first responders.”
The District has ramped up its emergency planning since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year deemed the entire region’s strategy for responding to a catastrophic incident lacking, from evacuations to medical treatment.
A regional evacuation plan is expected to be drawn up by November.
The KLD report, to include both evacuation times and suggestions for improvement, should be finished within a year.
