CDP training helps with ‘textbook’ response to Nashville bombing

When tragedy strikes, our nation’s law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel are typically the first on the scene. And many of them rely on training received from FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness.

Such was the case on Christmas day when a bomb exploded in downtown Nashville, TN, turning what should have been a peaceful holiday morning into a scene of terror. Some of the responders who worked the incident are among the more than 650 first responders in the Nashville metropolitan area the CDP trained in the past three years.

In fact, Nashville Fire Special Operations Captain Michael Armistead credited this and other preparedness training his team has taken for the team’s successful response to the incident, which the city’s mayor and members of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) called ‘textbook.’

The CDP trains responders in more than a dozen different disciplines to properly respond to a variety of natural and manmade incidents, from hurricanes and tornadoes to attacks with biological agents or chemical materials.

Since it first opened its doors in 1998, it has trained more than 1.3 million responders.