Three-day disaster drill gets in ahead of the demolition crews
This robot meant business.
Raising its metallic arm, it fired shots Tuesday, smashing windows in a van where authorities suspected a bomb was located.
If the robo-beatdown wasn't unusual enough, the setting was even stranger - the empty streets of a northeast Bensenville neighborhood where the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications is staging a three-day drill full of fictional disasters.
Chicago acquired about 600 properties near the south end of O'Hare International Airport to make way for airport expansion into Bensenville but it wasn't without a bitter legal feud between the city and village.
That struggle ended Nov. 16 when Bensenville settled lawsuits over demolition and land acquisition with Chicago for $16 million.
Demolition is set to begin in January but meantime, police, fire and emergency crews will practice their skills in the ghost neighborhood, reacting to various crises from bombs to evacuations.
"It's trying to make a negative into a positive," Bensenville Village President Frank Soto said. "This is an opportunity for the homes to be utilized rather than lost. This could save lives."
Tuesday's training exercise involved a nonexistent improvised explosive device, located in a Ford van near a fictional water treatment plant on what used to be Hillside Drive in Bensenville.
The boarded-up windows and weedy yards full of unraked leaves are a far cry from the neighborhood that stood there once, but authorities called it a perfect training ground for an urban emergency.
Guided by a remote Chicago police handler, the robot inched near the van, capturing images with cameras until it was directed to fire. Hovering nearby, another robot took readings of the air to check for toxins.
Although the robo-cop seemed to be packing serious heat, Chicago authorities were tight-lipped about what type of weapon the droid was carrying, referring to it only as "a disrupter."
On Wednesday and Thursday, SWAT team maneuvers and search and rescue drills are scheduled.
"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide a realistic training environment," Chicago Aviation Commissioner Rosemarie S. Andolino said.
Demolition will start early in 2010 and finish in September. "We're working with Bensenville to coordinate everything so there will be no surprises," Andolino said.
Upcoming O'Hare expansion projects include relocating part of Irving Park Road, the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and the Bensenville Ditch.
About 240 people took part in the exercise Tuesday. During the three-day drill, participants will include Chicago fire and police departments, the Cook County Office of Emergency Management, local members of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, including units from Arlington Heights and Elk Grove Village, and Bensenville police.