Photo By Sgt. Adam Simmler | Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bilodeau, from the Maine Army National guard, acting as officer in...... read more read more
EXETER, R.I. - You never know when disaster will strike your community, but you can always count on the National Guard to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice, and that’s what the National Guard’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive Emergency Response Force Package (CERF-P) is there for.
During the week of Oct. 24, CERF-Ps made up of Air and Army National Guardsmen from Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island met in Exeter Rhode Island to train and keep their skills sharp, in order to be better prepared for a real life scenario. The units met at the State of Rhode Island Fire Academy and set up operations near a rubble pile used for search and extraction training.
“We’re here to assist with local law enforcement, EMS, and fire services,” Said Staff Sgt. Travis Pond, a motor transport operator with the 521st Troop Command, from New Sharon, Maine. “We’re like a three-ring binder, if you’re the incident commander, we come to you and say ‘this is what we offer, let us know if we can help.”
The CERF-P teams are a key element of the Department of Defense’s overall program to provide military support to civil authorities in the event of an intentional or accidental incident involving CBRNE or Weapons of Mass Destruction in the United States. The CERF-P is designed as a homeland response package, and is capable of quickly responding to anything from mudslides to hazardous gas incidents to a ten-kiloton nuclear disaster, said Pond.
The units from across New England came together to train and be evaluated on their proficiencies to see what areas they can improve. Every day the CERF-P showed up with their equipment packed away in trucks and trailers. They set up the entire operation to be prepared to rescue, decontaminate, treat wounds and evacuate actors posing as injured civilians. After the exercise was complete, everything was packed up, ready to be redeployed for the next scenario.
“It’s good training for the Armed Forces to be able to respond to different situations,” said Christopher Trinidad, a New Bedford, Massachusetts resident who volunteered to play an injured civilian during the exercise. ”If something tragic happens the National Guard will be a little more prepared to do something, and I feel much safer because of it.”
Pond concluded, “Even though we have the barriers of each state’s job here, it’s like being in any other unit, when everybody shows up, you’re all excited to see each other, because you have a combined mission. I hope this reassures the community that we’re ready for any sort of disaster, whether it be a mudslide, or a larger scale terrorist attack, we’re prepared and ready.”
| Date Taken: | 10.25.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 11.02.2014 13:12 |
| Story ID: | 146778 |
| Location: | EXETER, RI, US |
| Hometown: | NEW SHARON, ME, US |
| Web Views: | 160 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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