Emergency exercise to provide realistic scene at airport
There are no comments for this page [ Add Comment ]Wednesday, May 14, 2008
By Mary Lou Gorny
Hilltop Times editor
Smoke machines up and running, aircraft props visible and lying on the ground, ambulances and helicopters in the forefront and background and victims lying on the ground or milling about. So where is the film crew?
On May 20, at the southeast end of a runway at Ogden-Hinckley Airport passers-by may be tempted to believe either that there has been an accident or that some kind of film crew is setting up to record the scene.
Eric Faucher, 75th Wing XP program analyst with Hill AFB, wants any motorists driving by on State Road 79 to realize beforehand that what they are viewing are the area's emergency response teams preparing for a worst-case scenario.
"We don't want the public to drive by and mistakenly report an incident," he said, adding that they will be posting exercise in progress signs on that side of the airport on the route.
Hill Air Force Base conducts these type of exercises on a yearly basis. However, for the first time Hill will test AFIMS with on-base and off-base emergency management in order to coordinate, evaluate and improve emergency response.
"All of our emergency systems now correspond with the off-base agencies in EM (emergency management)," Faucher said.
Off-base counterparts will test AFIMS in the two-pronged exercise, with one site at the airport and another in Farmington Canyon.
"It's going to look pretty good. There will be Life Flight and Air Med helicopters and ambulances responding and they will transport to McKay-Dee and Ogden Regional (hospitals), 50 to 60 people," he said in reference to the Weber County site. The Davis response teams will be responding to a different challenge - a high angle rescue of victims in a canyon setting.
The test scenario is this: A C-9 and C-130 clip wings in the air in a mid-air collision resulting in the two crash sites in Davis and Weber counties with Morgan County emergency responders participating as well.
Faucher adds quickly that the reason the scenario involves an air collision is not because any such airplane incidents are expected. Rather, it is the nature of emergency response to prepare for the worst.
"Nobody anticipates a plane crash," he said.
Hill Air Force Base will provide 10 "victims" for the Ogden site and a moulage team along with evaluators. The Unified Command response will be directed by the base as well.
Lance Peterson, director of Weber County's Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, reports that more than 200 participants will be involved in that part of the exercise occurring at the airport.
In e-mail remarks in regards as to what he anticipates Peterson said, "Our focus in the exercise in Weber County, is on mass casualty response. We have a great plan, we just need to practice it more often."
Peterson finds Hill AFB incident management personnel helpful in these joint exercises saying, "We really enjoy the close working relationship that we have with Hill Air Force Base. This is just another example of having such a good neighbor like them."
Others among the long list of off-base responders who are to participate include various fire departments, sheriff's offices, dispatch centers, police departments, Weber-Morgan Health Department officials, and the state of Utah Division of Protective Services will provide a helicopter.
The American Red Cross will have representatives there and UTA will provide four buses.
Students from local Adult Training Colleges, schools and Community Emergency Response Team members will be recruited to play 50 to 60 victims for the airport scene.
As for the Davis County site, "Farmington Canyon Road will be closed for that part of the exercise," Faucher said. Hill will respond to that site as well. Dummies will be the primary props in that exercise as the canyon location presents a steep rescue site.
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