Salt Lake City responders enhance community’s preparedness

About 50 responders from the Salt Lake City metropolitan area participated in training April 8-12 on the CDP’s campus in Anniston, Ala.

The responders, who included medical professionals and police and fire hazardous materials specialists, attended one of six different courses during the week – Healthcare Leadership for Mass Casualty Incidents (HCL); Hospital Emergency Response Training for Mass Casualty Incidents (HERT); Emergency Medical Operations for CBRNE Incidents (EMO); Hazardous Materials Technologies: Sampling, Monitoring, and Detection; Hazardous Materials Evidence Collection for CBRNE Incidents (HEC); and Hazardous Materials Technician for CBRNE Incidents (HT).  

Students in the HCL, HERT and HEC courses also participated in an Integrated Capstone Exercise, a full-blown exercise at the end of a training week where students from multiple courses and disciplines work together to respond to one or more simulated incidents patterned after recent real-world events.  

Salt Lake City is an Urban Area Security Initiative community, which means it is designated a ‘high threat’ community by the Department of Homeland Security.

Among other things, responder agencies in UASI communities typically form partnerships and train together to improve their capacity to protect against, respond to and recover from catastrophic incidents and disasters.