There will be a major emergency exercise taking place in Rainer today.
It involves a CN train accident at the bridge linking the Minnesota community with Fort Frances.
Emergency personnel will be simulating their reaction to the incident.
Koochiching County’s Emergency Management Coordinator Willi Kostiuk says Operation Walleye involves over 150 people.
“This is the largest full-scale exercise that Minnesota has ever done because of all the different agencies that are involved. We have upwards of over 40 agencies, local, state and federal, that are going to have some part in this,” says Kostiuk.
More than 150 people are involved including those who will pretend to be victims, protestors and members of the media.
Kostiuk says every aspect of the exercise is being evaluated.
The event has also attracted the attention of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, who will be observing activities.
“When you get recognized as an exercise in the FEMA’s newsletter and then the possibility of them actually having representatives to come up and observe it, that’s as big as it gets in my world,” says Kostiuk.
The event is expected to run for much of the day.
