BELLAIRE – A training exercise to enhance emergency response capabilities and coordination between different agencies was conducted Sunday at the Antrim County Airport in Bellaire.
The exercise was a collaboration of the Antrim County Office of Emergency Management, Michigan National Guard, and local law enforcement.
“The purpose of the training was to integrate civil law enforcement with military resources,” said exercise coordinator Scott Doolittle. “The scenario was critical infrastructure and key resource security access control, and potential civil unrest.”
Doolittle said the exercise included several different scenarios. Volunteers played roles, attempting to gain access into secured areas and testing the capabilities of the soldiers. Other scenarios involved the handling of suspicious packages, simulated shots fired, injuries, loss of communications, and explosive devices. The scenarios were intended to be as realistic as possible. One exercise included the rapid deployment of additional National Guard soldiers who were flown in from Camp Grayling by Black Hawk helicopters. The soldiers returned to Camp Grayling by bus.
“The integration piece continues to be a learning point for everybody because civil law enforcement and military don’t always train together,” Dolittle explained. “It’s always a challenge and then communications is always the next challenge – getting everyone communicating on the same channel.”
At the conclusion of the training, soldiers and participants shared feedback about the experience and discussed areas of strength, and where additional training would be beneficial.
“The need for this training is important,” said Matt Adamek, Antrim County Emergency Service Coordinator. “A successful collaboration between very different agencies requires a lot of work.”
Adamek said, even though the focus of the exercise was the collaboration between local law enforcement and our Michigan National Guard, the relationship will be strengthened for any incident. Response, protection, and safety of citizens in the community are improved because of the training.
Everyone worked well together during the exercise, he noted.
Sunday’s exercise lasted about four hours, and included approximately 50 members of the National Guard, personnel from Antrim County Sheriff’s Office, Michigan State Police, East Jordan EMS, and several local volunteers who engaged in a civil unrest scenario involving simulated attempts to breach the airport’s security.
Additional training exercises such as a simulated cyberattack, simulated chemical spill, and simulated damage to infrastructure are taking place in other parts of Northern Michigan.
“Our hope is to expand these trainings to deal with other types of incidents in the years to follow,” Adamek said.