Not all that strange. Semi-realistic emergency training often goes just like this. I used to work for a contractor to DOE, which had three large nuclear installations in the region and we had these kinds of drills about every 6 months. A "scenario" would be set up -- radiological emergency, accidental chemical release, collapsed building, etc. -- and then all the people who would be involved would receive a message on our pagers (yes, this was the day of pagers...ugh! Nasty little things that could go off at any time, day or night...) and tell us where to go... usually it was to an emergency facility set up for that purpose.
The public relations folks would start putting out "public notices" and updates, according to a script. Various specialists -- chemical, radiological, biological, etc. -- would go through the motions of addressing whatever the crisis du jour was that day... and so on. We even had "casualties" drawn from the labor pool.... janitors, grounds keepers, etc., who would act out whatever injury or condition they were told to.
I GUESS it kept people on their toes and mindful of emergency actions, but I found them to be a pain in the ass, but that's just me. I no longer work there but hey, it paid the mortgage.
Not all that strange. Semi-realistic emergency training often goes just like this. I used to work for a contractor to DOE, which had three large nuclear installations in the region and we had these kinds of drills about every 6 months. A "scenario" would be set up -- radiological emergency, accidental chemical release, collapsed building, etc. -- and then all the people who would be involved would receive a message on our pagers (yes, this was the day of pagers...ugh! Nasty little things that could go off at any time, day or night...) and tell us where to go... usually it was to an emergency facility set up for that purpose.
The public relations folks would start putting out "public notices" and updates, according to a script. Various specialists -- chemical, radiological, biological, etc. -- would go through the motions of addressing whatever the crisis du jour was that day... and so on. We even had "casualties" drawn from the labor pool.... janitors, grounds keepers, etc., who would act out whatever injury or condition they were told to.
I GUESS it kept people on their toes and mindful of emergency actions, but I found them to be a pain in the ass, but that's just me. I no longer work there but hey, it paid the mortgage.