Ingham County was a disaster Thursday.
A woman was left paralyzed when debris from an exploding building crushed her car. About 30 people trapped in the building were rushed to Lansing's Sparrow Hospital. A bus was hijacked and an apartment complex was evacuated.
But right across from the gruesome scenes, lit by flashing fire and police department lights, pedestrians walked down the streets unaware on a drizzly, gray day.
It was just a drill.
More than 300 law enforcers, emergency workers and volunteers participated in the area's largest disaster exercise.
All day, more than 40 local agencies and nonprofit organizations worked to handle a mock terrorist attack.
The disaster differed from standard emergency drills and preparedness training because those involved knew little about the exercise in advance, those involved said.
"I didn't know much other than to clear my schedule," said Assistant Fire Marshal Barry Gaukel, who acted as a public information officer at one disaster site at the Lansing Fire Training Academy, 3015 Alpha Access Road.
Gaukel led the way past snaking fire hoses and a dozen fire trucks to a pile of rubble and crushed cars - an "explosion in a government building," he said.
MSU police officers stayed out of the action, instead observing the day's events.
The university's officers ran their own drill in mid-August, working with the East Lansing Police Department and MSU's Office of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Safety.
"Hopefully it's a continual process that will happen every year," MSU police Lt. Sue Busnardo said.
Evaluators from the American Red Cross also were watching the disaster unfold.
"With the outcome of this, we can identify training at the national level for disaster response," Red Cross evaluator John Apodaca said. "We're bringing that national experience local to home."
Thursday's communitywide effort cost about $35,000 in federal grants from Ingham County, the City of Lansing and the Lansing School District, according to Ronda Oberlin, Lansing emergency management specialist.
The money was slated for homeland security.
About 120 volunteers, many of them students, turned out on the chilly morning.
Eastern High School senior Dominique Star said she was "cold, cold, cold" from sitting outside for a few hours after being "paralyzed" in one of the crushed cars.
"It's not what I expected, they were too slow," she said of the firefighters milling around, just before she was sent to Sparrow Hospital. "It doesn't seem like they're very sure of themselves."
Oberlin said a main challenge was getting all the agencies, many that had never worked together, to operate as a unit.
"Things went well, things went badly," Oberlin said. "We enjoyed the things that went well and learned from the things that went badly."
