Preparing the Community To Be Safe During a Radiologic Emergency
Our Office of Radiation Protection’s Emergency Preparedness Section Helps the Community and Themselves
A big part of working at the Department of Health is knowing your work helps your community.
Nowhere is that truer than when it comes to the Office of Radiation Protection (ORP).
“I live near the nuclear power plant, too, and it’s important for everyone to be prepared and know what to do,” said Ryan Brice, the Plan and Procedures Lead for ORP’s Emergency Preparedness Section. “Our team tries to make sure that everybody knows which way to run and whether or not running is the best idea.” By doing his job, Ryan improves his community’s and the state’s chances of surviving a radiological event.
Emergency Planning Zones
The Emergency Preparedness Section is not very big. Seven people are responsible for maintaining readiness for radiological events, as in the case of a 2019 incident in Seattle (keep reading to find out more). Ryan and his team work with partners across the state with a focus in Benton and Franklin counties. The Columbia Generating Station, located in Richland, is Washington’s only commercial nuclear reactor.
“We have ‘emergency planning zones’ where we work with first responders and other public agencies to help prepare them for a radiologic event,” Ryan said. The team practices with hospitals, police, fire departments, and sheriff’s deputies. They also work with local health agencies, city and county officials, and others to ensure people know what to do in an emergency. When practicing for and responding to radiological emergencies, everybody in ORP has a part to play.
“Every person in Radiation Protection has a highly technical job that they do every day,” Ryan said. “They have the radiation expertise to apply it to situations, like X-ray machine inspection. Our job is to teach them how we apply their skills in emergency preparedness and response.” For example, an X-ray machine inspector might train in detecting radiation exposure in people and how best to treat them.
“We try to balance the amount of training time so our co-workers can do their job and still train and be prepared to respond to an emergency,” Ryan added.
Emergency Response
Real-life situations test the training from time to time. “We’ve had a few real-life responses to some incidents,” Ryan said. Most often, Ryan’s team responds to radiological alarms. “A lot of our job is making sure that the radiation in any place isn’t more than ‘naturally occurring radioactive material.’”
But, there are times when a radiological event happens and ORP kicks into high gear.
In May 2019, radioactive material leaked from an irradiator, which is used to treat blood and avoid transfusion complications, at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Fire department crews responded to the event and took the right steps to minimize exposure. The crews helped keep people safe because of the training they received from the ORP Emergency Preparedness Section. ORP workers responded to the radiation leak to ensure it was handled and cleaned up properly.
Myth Busting
Ryan and his team also answer a lot of questions from the public.
“We do a little myth busting when we talk about the naturally occurring radioactive material and how radiation is around us all the time,” Ryan said. “As a radiation expert, I know that many of the things people read online scare them into calling ORP, when really naturally occurring radiation — from the sun, minerals in the Earth, or from space — is not a threat to people’s health.”
You can learn more about radiation through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s websites:
The state Department of Health also shares radiation information online.
“Everybody in the Office of Radiation Protection lives and works in the state of Washington. We all want the same thing everybody else wants,” Ryan said. “We want our homes, families, and neighbors to be safer and better tomorrow than today. And we want to have a safe and good today.”
