The Ashland County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency will take part in a 16 county hazardous materials functional exercise this Thursday.

Ashland County EMA Director Mark Rafeld said the exercise calls for 650 participants, including local and volunteers statewide.

The exercise scenario is a winter storm on the scale of the blizzard of 1978 that will cripple 16 Ohio counties. Rafeld said a hazmat situation in Loudonville will also threaten lives of hundreds of people during the exercise.

The exercise will focus on incident command, emergency operations center, resource management, communications and public information.

The multi county disaster exercise will involve multiple counties and state agencies along with local emergency planning committee members from Ashland County, emergency responders, Smaritan Hospital, amateur radio operators, the Ashland County-City Health Department, American Red Cross, Ashland University and LEPC members.