Photo By Staff Sgt. Sarah Myrick | Staff Sgt Robert Kennedy, a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Specialist...... read more read more
The Maine National Guard’s 11th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team conducted a full scale exercise at the South Portland High School June 29, 2017.
CST is as active duty National Guard joint force unit consisting of members of the Air National Guard and Army National Guard. The Joint Hazard Assessment Team, a specialized unit, which usually consists of four of the 22 members of the 11th WMD CST unit, work in civilian attire alongside police and fire departments at local events like concerts and graduations.
“The scenario is that the South Portland High School graduation ceremony is about to take place and we have some mock chemical agents set out,” said 1st Lt. Aaron Bradbury, the survey team leader with the 11th WMD CST.
The intention is that the JHAT team will find Chemical, Biological, Radiological or Nuclear threats before they cause a problem, but worst case scenario they will be the first responders and using their detection equipment they can assist local authorities.
“We provide support to the civil authorities,” said Bradbury. “They usually request that we come out and do quality of air monitoring to make sure there aren’t any CBRN threats.”
In the event that there has been a terrorist incident or some kind of WMD has occurred police or fire departments may be the first to arrive, but they will call in the JHAT team to help assist at the scene.
“We report to the scene, assess, advise and assist the incident commander on what to do,” said Tech. Sgt. Joshua Bond, the Information Systems Analyst with the 11th WMD CST. “We work for the incident commander at that point. We let them know who we are, what we can bring them and find out what they would like us to do.”
The JHAT team works at events with large groups of people where a CBRN threat is likely. They have covered holiday events, concerts, festivals, sporting events like the Boston Marathon, the World Series, the Super Bowl, and even the Pope’s recent visit to Pennsylvania.
The JHAT team conducts the initial sweeps of an event to check for threats, if there is a threat detected then the entire CST unit will be called in to help out.
During this exercise the JHAT team found the mock chemical agent.
“We found some bottles with a chemical that caused some of our detection equipment to go off,” said Bond. “We stopped our surveying to get further guidance.”
The JHAT team called in the rest of the CST unit once a threat was detected. They also called in local fire departments and reassessed the area wearing mission oriented protective posture.
The 11th WMD CST has a set of core mission tasks, including communication, medical, decontamination and command and control that they need to conduct every year and this type of exercise serves as an excellent opportunity for them to complete those tasks.
| Date Taken: | 06.29.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 06.29.2017 16:11 |
| Story ID: | 239659 |
| Location: | SOUTH PORTLAND, MAINE, US |
| Web Views: | 421 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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