It was a rough week for Fort Meade.
An armed man held about 20 students hostage at Meade High School for two hours while first responders struggled to negotiate with him.
Soldiers discovered a bomb that exploded moments later, injuring service members and exposing them to an unknown chemical, biological or nerve agent.
Emergency responders rushed to bust a drug den. A group of antiwar protesters devolved into an angry mob that rioted at Llewelyn gate.
Fort Meade's first responders, military police and directorates met these staged challenges during the installation's Force Protection Exercise held Sept. 15 to 17. The annual event is designed to test how post leaders and staff members respond to a variety of crises and recognize areas where improvements could be made, said Doug Wise, the installation's antiterrorism officer.
"The biggest thing was the actual hands-on training that a lot of them got," Wise said. "They got familiar with their own terrain and working with one another."
Emergency Services personnel weren't the only ones tested. All Fort Meade directorates were involved in the exercise after the stand-up of the installation's Emergency Operations Center, with each leader in charge of varying responsibilities.
The Public Affairs Office stood up a media operations center and held two press conferences, fielding questions from "reporters" over the installation's response to the bomb blast.
In the simulation at an abandoned barracks on Wigle Court where the bomb would be discovered, organizers worked to keep the exercise as authentic as possible. When the practice called for a bomb to explode after its detection by a bomb-sniffing canine with the 241st Military Police Detachment, an actual piece of dynamite blew up, filling the area with sound and smoke.
"It helps motivate the people that are participating," Wise said. "If they hear the bang and see the smoke, it adds to the realism."
The storm of noise and fury also worked to imbue the exercise with the pressure that follows a major incident in which first responders must confront various challenges, from unsecured buildings to prioritizing the wounded.
"You're dealing with pandemonium," said Jeffrey McClendon, a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high explosives officer on Fort Meade. "Realistically, this could happen."
For Soldiers from Kimbrough Ambulatory Care Center, the training was a welcomed break from the routine.
"This stuff is fun to do," said Capt. Randolph Leon of Kimbrough, who led the eight-person team. "We need to be ready."
Kimbrough's Medical Augmentation Team established a tent to scrub down service members who were "wounded" and "exposed to an unknown agent" during the exercise.
For participants such as Sgt. Timothy Roye of the 241st MPs -- who searched the area with his working dog, a chocolate Labrador named Bubba -- the time called for him to quickly assess the area before allowing his dog off the leash.
"When I first started out, it was an intense situation. Nobody wants to go in there and find something that would kill them," Roye said. "Over time, you learn to relax."
Not all of the simulations, though, were flights of fancy. A late afternoon hostage situation at the high school was based on a case study of a 2006 crisis at a high school in Bailey, Colo., in which a gunman claiming to possess a bomb took a classroom of students hostage.
In the post's exercise, the hostages were played by members of Meade High School's Homeland Security Signature program. Student role players were able to stick around after the crisis to learn how first responders operate.
Simulating the tragic events worked as a test of negotiating and decision-making skills, said Capt. Margie Brown, commander of the 241st MP Detachment.
"It's sort of intense," she said. "At the same time, your safety is not [endangered]. Your concern is with the hostages inside."
While the exercise has ended, the event's impact remains. Leaders will need to spend the days and weeks going forward looking at ways to improve.
For FMWR, which regularly conducts crisis-response training, the exercise pointed out gaps in their response plans, said Nate Whitlaw, management analysis at FMWR and force protection specialist.
"They learned we needed to update emergency notification rosters and we needed to train more frequently with other directorates," he said.
Communicating between directorates or emergency responders in the field and installation leaders in the EOC could also be improved, Wise said.
"We still need work on communications," he said.
But the incident also revealed unknown strengths as first responders worked with the Soldiers of the 241st MPs, Wise said.
"By working the way we did with 241st [MPs], we learned we had more capability than we initially thought," he said.
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