OAKLAND — The victims in Tuesday's massive terrorism drill were jovial as they smiled through their artificial gore and faked agonizing deaths through their gallows humor.  They would have been less cheery had the attacks on Jack London Square and the Port of Oakland, simulated in this year's Golden Guardian exercise, been real. Federal homeland security officials called the $1.7 million drill the biggest terrorism exercise ever conducted in California because 2,500 emergency personnel and 160 agencies took part.  It all started at 9:01 a.m. with three loud explosions and a smoke machine in Parking Lot A of the McAfee Coliseum in Oakland. Fictionally, that signaled a bombing using VX nerve agent at a Jack London Square farmers market. Simultaneously, according to the script developed over nine months of planning, a sulfur dioxide rail car exploded in Roseville, near Sacramento.  Together, the two Oakland bombings were the first of 10 coordinated terrorist attacks in Northern California — a full-scale drill that was intended to stretch emergency agencies beyond their limits.

As they reacted to the bombings, firefighters in Oakland and Sacramento learned there were snipers shooting at them, toxic chemicals and nerve agents swirling about them, second bombs hidden to kill them and realistic bomb threats at area hospitals to slow the recovery.On top of that, Oakland was going through a shift change.

About 400,000 Sacramento-area people would have needed evacuation, and Oakland reported "thousands of evacuations" and 108 dead. All of downtown, Chinatown and Old Oakland was to shelter in place to avoid the spreading plume of VX nerve gas.  During the drill, Oakland activated its emergency command center within 11 minutes of the first attack and simulated sounding its 24 shelter-in-place klaxons within 30 minutes.  The drill was called a success, but there are things to improve. As always, participants talked of improving communications. Capt. Rocky Madeiros, who runs the counterterror unit at the Alameda County Sheriff's Department, said he wants a universal radio system for all nine Bay Area counties.

The "victims" at the Coliseum and at the old Oakland Army supply base had to writhe for nearly an hour before anyone treated them. Children screamed "help us, we're dying" as firetrucks pulled back to avoid contamination. That is the normal, painstaking process of assessing the threat, Oakland fire Chief Dan Farrell explained at a media debriefing.  "It does take time. Sometimes the casualties are higher than you want," he said.  But despite the methodical care of testing the toxic cloud, establishing a safe perimeter and setting up access and evacuation routes, two first responders became victims of toxic exposure.  On the other hand, Madeiros reported, everybody was well aware of the threat from a secondary explosion, a popular al-Qaida tactic.  "The first question was universal: Has the command post been screened for a secondary device? It had. In the past, I've been on drills when they killed everybody at the command truck," he said.

Police had a mixed day as well.  They managed to seize two suspected bombers during the widespread crisis, but they also said they were unaware of the wider threat statewide until 11 a.m., two hours into the drill.

This year's drill comes as the Legislature for the first time is holding oversight hearings into California's terrorism and natural catastrophe preparedness.

In recent hearings, prompted by Hurricane Katrina, lawmakers asked if hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of federal counterterrorism funding have been spent wisely. They openly debated if California needs to take upon itself the mantle of protecting ports and mass transit.  Golden Guardian tested much of the equipment bought by those homeland security grants. Madeiros and others were pleased. For the first time hundreds of protective suits and personal chem/bio antidotes were tested and worked well.

Overall, the emergency response system held.  "In this case it worked like it was supposed to," said Tom Maruyama, an evaluator for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

A full formal assessment will be issued in the upcoming weeks.

Contact Sean Holstege at

sholstege@angnewspapers.com.