If a massive natural disaster hit the National Capital Region and the area's first responders had to take action on a large scale, how would they do it?
That's the question more than 40 agencies from the Department of Defense and local emergency services teams worked to answer during Capital Shield 15, a huge interagency emergency response exercise held Sept. 22-26.
The simulations - which were spread out between locations in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia - test the ability of DoD, federal and local agencies to operate and communicate together during an event impacting the National Capital Region.
The Army's 911th Technical Rescue Engineer Company was one of myriad agencies using Fairfax County's emergency training site at the former Lorton Youth Detention Center on Sept. 23. Once a sprawling prison complex, the abandoned buildings now house different training apparatuses for rescue personnel.
These tools realistically simulate different emergency situations. A maze of small tunnels filled with debris - couches, file cabinets, kitchen appliances - recreated a collapsed building. Crews had to cut through and remove the debris in order to make it to "victims" inside.
Teams also had to cut through slabs of concrete 10 inches thick to gain entry to buildings, cut victims from cars trapped beneath buses and crawl through piping 18 inches wide in order to successfully rescue victims.
Capt. Mike Riccitiello, 911th Engineer Company commander, said the exercise was an excellent way for the region's different agencies to work with the same people they would if responding to a real emergency.
"If we ever got the phone call, the first time I meet Fairfax County - I don't want it to be the day I get the phone call," he said. "I want to be able to say, 'Hey guys, remember us?'"
Riccitiello said his unit is able to use Fairfax County's Lorton training site about once a quarter.
"We get to use it fairly often; Fairfax is very nice to let us come out here," he said.
The 911th has a variety of equipment at its disposal, including a crane for picking up and shifting rubble from collapsed buildings.
"We're there to assist in an event that might exceed the capabilities of Fairfax County or Arlington County - anything that the DoD can assist with," he said.
Stationed at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, the 911th's skillset is reserved for the National Capital Region. Formerly known as Military District of Washington Engineer Company, the unit was renamed the 911th after it responded to the terrorist attack at the Pentagon Sept. 11, 2001.
Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief Paul Ruwe, the incident commander at the Lorton site, said the training exercise was a valuable opportunity to get acquainted with the equipment of other response units.
"They travel like an army," Ruwe said of the 911th. "They bring almost 20, 30 vehicles with them. They bring a whole lot more heavy machinery with them."
See page 6 for more photos of this event and visit the JBM-HH Flickr site at www.flickr.com/photos/jbm-hh.
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