The abandoned structure in Barre Town, Vermont known as the “Dufresne House” has finally been slated for leveling in preparation for a statewide “catastrophic exercise” that has been in planning over the past year. The house will lay scene to just one of many scenarios that over 750 emergency responders will have to face over 30 straight hours.
The exercise, which will simulate a massive natural disaster and is run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has been kept completely secret and has targeted two dozen locations throughout Vermont, including Barre, Berlin, Waterbury, St. Johnsbury, Burlington and Jericho.
The Dufresne House will be leveled so that responders can sift through the debris as though they were on a search and rescue mission. The exercise is supposed to be as realistic as possible, simulating the kind of destruction that hit in the 1938 hurricane.
To prepare the Dufresne House for leveling and to make it safe for responders to work in, a contractor spent a week removing the asbestos and other hazardous materials from the building. Asbestos is highly toxic and known to cause asbestosis and mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the chest and abdominal cavities and the organs they contain.
Had the asbestos not been removed prior to demolition, both community residents and visiting responders would have been at risk of exposure, as the crumbling and disturbance of this carcinogen make its toxic fibers air-borne and easily inhaled. Once in the lungs, asbestos can cause not only lung cancer, but pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs known as the pleura.
Once the exercise has been completed, the debris from the Dufresne House will be removed and the site re-graded.