The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently partnered with Seattle officials to conduct virtual exercises testing their preparedness for bioterrorist incidents.
According to a news release, a virtual tabletop exercise of the BioWatch program was conducted by the DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office (CWMD), Seattle area emergency response officials, public health officials, and lab officials.
"BioWatch is a critical element of the nation’s biodefense architecture," Gary Rasicot, acting Assistant Secretary for CWMD, said. "The program leverages state, local, and federal capabilities to enhance the opportunities to employ life-saving countermeasures in the event of a biological attack. Our job at CWMD is to help ensure our partners across all levels of government have the training and resources needed to prepare to respond to this type of incident."
During the exercise, officials discussed the roles and responsibilities of each organization in the event of a terrorist incident.
"The BioWatch exercise we just completed demonstrates the tremendous strength of our response system and collaborative interagency coordination here in the Greater Puget Sound Region," Battalion Chief Dan Murray of the Seattle Fire Department said. "It truly reflects the great capability and capacity of our key partnerships from local, state, and federal agencies that would be able to be leveraged to detect and respond to a bioterrorism event here in our region."
The DHS-CWMD BioWatch program constantly monitors 30 major metropolitan areas across the U.S. to detect early signs of potential airborne biological attacks.
