Emergency Preparedness Testing in Indianapolis

[Rick]

Most of you probably know that the 2012 Super Bowl will be held in Indianapolis. Obviously, the Colts won't be in it but that's a whole other thread. For the past several weeks it has been one disaster training drill after another downtown. All of which is good stuff in my book.

We've had two mass casualty drills that included some mentally disturbed actors as well as one guy that showed up with a freshly extracted tooth and his dentist was killed. Pretty creative scenarios.

An earthquake disaster with 1000 "killed", thousands injured and an unknown number trapped in rubble.

A national coordination exercise complete with National Guard, FEMA, police and news crews to cover the disaster. That wrapped up today.

We had an inter country military exercise that was conducted at one of our Army bases.

We had a bio-hazard drill complete with FEMA hospital and decon tents.

We had a terrorist drill that hit Chicago and victims were flown into Indy. That was held at the airport.

I guess I did not realize the extent to which cities go to when they play host to the Super Bowl. The field training includes all state and federal agencies, city services and many of the area hospitals. While the design is to keep the visitors safe during the Super Bowl the residual effects of well trained local first responders is a pretty nice plus, too.

[gryffynklm]

Interesting, Didn't Denver do a similar drill a week or so ago? Nice to see they are trying out their multi organization coordination.

[hunter63]

That a good deal for your area.

I wonder if they have a common radio frequency for all the agencies?

They been trying to get their act together in Milwaukee for the last couple of years.

[natertot]

I work at a hospital in Cincinnati and alot of those drills we do on a regular basis as a hospital. We did an earthquake one a few months ago that involved other agencies. Last year we had a mass casualty exercise with a local airport. It is pretty cool stuff.

[Rick]

Hunter - I know they just completed converting to digital on the radios. I think that was their first step to be able to talk to each other. I'm not much up on public frequencies so all I know is what I've read. I know all I can pick up is one side of the conversation on my amateur radio.

For the earthquake drill they had an area that was set up with rubble, trees on cars, etc. It was all pretty realistic looking.

And not a FEMA camp in the bunch.

[hunter63]

Milwaukee's system cost a whole bunch of millions, 2 years in the making and still doesn't work.

Police has gone digital in our little berg, but Sheriff and FD still comes on my scanne, old BearCat.

[Rick]

What did you call me?!