Readouts from the gas chromatographs, along with logs of who goes in and out, are kept for a generation. Several backup systems ensure uninterrupted power supply, Morrissey explained. The facility's hot zone is actually a large dome made of foot-thick reinforced concrete. It's a tornado-proof building within a building. Inside this inner chamber, all instructors carry nerve agent antidote injectors, and extra injectors are readily available inside every room.
Students practice injections on a dummy using expired antidote, so nothing goes to waste.
The building is equipped with four times the filtering capacity actually needed to clean the air. Air piped out of the training areas goes through nine filters. It should be clean then, but it goes through another nine just to be safe, Morrissey said. Then it is monitored one last time before being exhausted to the outside. It would take quite a series of disasters to cause a problem, but we like to be sure.