On Sept 7th several major business buildings downtown will be staging an evacuation drill in case of a "terrorist" attack. Many corporations are shutting down early and people will flood "into the streets" as a practice in case of some sort of mass panic. Daley himself says that this will likely cause "some chaos". Does anyone think that this will be an opportunity to bring attention to how they use fear to get people to submit to police state legislation?

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Part of Loop to see 'voluntary evacuation'
August 29, 2006 BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Chicago has conducted countless tabletop drills since Sept. 11, 2001, to simulate what would happen if the city was hit with a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

Next week, the simulation will come "off the tabletop and out into the street."

Emergency preparedness officials will stage a "voluntary evacuation" in part of the Loop that Chief Emergency Officer Cortez Trotter described as "two square blocks, maybe more." The Sears Tower will not be included in the drill, tentatively scheduled for next Thursday.

City Hall was tight-lipped about the precise location to preserve the element of surprise. Other sources said the exercise would begin at 4 p.m. at four buildings: the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, 20 S. Wacker; the Hyatt Center, 71 S. Wacker; Deloitte & Touche, 111 S. Wacker; and an office building at 10 S. Wacker.

Building employees who agree to participate -- and give up several hours of their workday -- will be directed to designated "transport centers," Trotter said. Once their names are recorded, they might even be taken to McCormick Place and other mass shelters where food, water, washcloths, toothbrushes and other essentials would be made available.

McCormick Place got its first shelter test during a South Side power outage earlier this month.

The goal of the drill is to test in a real-life situation how prepared Chicago is for a mass evacuation five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and one year after Hurricane Katrina.

"When you do tabletop exercises, that's one thing. But it becomes real-life to people when they can actually see it. Once they see these exercises unfolding and they can understand that, 'Hey, that could be me tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or next year,' they start to pay closer attention to it," Trotter told a news conference at the city's 911 emergency center.

"The exercise not only demonstrates what we would have people do once they reach ground level. It takes it to the next step. And that is, once you're evacuated, you can anticipate going to assembly transport centers. You can anticipate being told to go to different locations. Once that takes place, then the second phase of the exercise that'll be done -- later on in the year, probably -- picks it up at that point: the stockpiling of emergency materials.

Daley: 'Has to be some chaos'

Trotter said the evacuation will not cause a "considerable disruption" in the central business district. But it will cover an area "large enough so that we can get a good sampling" of where Chicago stands.

"Yes, we have a plan. Yes, we understand the plan. Yes, we believe that it will work well. We're going to test it and make sure that it does and, if it needs to be tweaked, then we'll do it. .. . We had a recent power outage on the South Side. As a result of the evacuation that took place there, we've learned some things. We've tweaked the plan. Now, we're bringing it downtown. Once we do it here, we're going back to the neighborhoods," he said.

With only four buildings participating in a drill that starts after the Merc is closed, there's little chance the drill will disrupt normal business in the Loop. And even if there is some disruption, it's worth the risk, said Jerry Roper, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.

"It gives us some real experience to start judging our evacuation plan and taking a look at what an evacuation would look like -- the patterns of people as they come out of buildings. Other than that, it's just a manual sitting on a desk somewhere," he said.

Trotter stressed that evacuees would be "taken someplace." But Roper said there has been no discussion of busing participants to shelters.

"As people come out of the buildings, they'll be directed to processing centers to the east. They'll be asked to identify themselves, where they work. This way, you're capturing correct information. You're able to account for everyone," Roper said.

Mayor Daley said it's pivotal not to reveal too many details about the drill in advance.

"You can't say, 'Everybody has to do this. Now, we'll give everybody an alert. Here's what you have to do.' That's not an evacuation plan. This has to be spontaneous. . . . There has to be some chaos. People get frightened. They get upset," he said.

'War of the Worlds' panic?

But what about pedestrians and other innocent bystanders who have no idea that it's only a drill? Isn't there at least some danger of a ''War of the Worlds'' scenario, where passersby believe that it's all for real and start panicking?

"Let's hope not. Let's hope that there's enough interest and enough chaos to let us evaluate what would happen. But, I doubt we would get into a 'War of the Worlds' [panic] over just a few people," Trotter said.