FRMAC-93 lessons learned report

FRMAC-93 simulated a radiological accident at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant, 25 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska. The exercise involved the state Iowa and Nebraska, NRC as the lead Federal agency, FRMAC (Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center), and several federal agencies with statutory emergency responsibility. FRMAC-93 was a major 2-day field exercise designed to determine the effectiveness, coordination, and operations of a DOE-managed FRMAC. Other objectives were to ensure that appropriate priorities were established and assistance was provided to the states and the lead Federal agency by FRMAC. Day 1 involved the Fort Calhoun evaluated plume phase exercise. On Day 2, the flow of data, which was slow initially, improved so that confidence of states and other federal responders in FRMAC support capabilities was high. The impact and lessons learned from FRMAC-93 provided the necessary impetus to make organizational and operational changes to the FRMAC program, which were put into effect in the DOE exercise FREMONT at Hanford 3 months later