4th CST, 202nd EOD, Aviation Participate In Gordon County Disaster Exercise

Story and photos by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry
Georgia National Guard
Public Affairs Office

GORDON COUNTY, April 2, 2007 – Shortly after classes began at Sonoraville High and Middle schools about 6 miles from Calhoun, emergency klaxons alerted students and faculty to trouble inside the high school’s hallowed halls. What the more than 800 people who evacuated the two schools didn’t know was that two “gunmen,” one packing explosives, the other an “unknown chemical agent,” darted from a “stolen sedan” into the high school’s main hall, downed a Gordon County sheriff’s deputy and began roaming the building looking for victims.

What some among the students and faculty also didn’t realize, for the moment, was that this was a disaster drill aimed at evaluating the response of Georgia National Guard emergency assets and civil emergency responders to such a catastrophe as the one played out in this rural school. Such drills, whether they involve schools or other “facilities” are carried out at least twice each year, at different locations across the state.

Among the Georgia units to respond, said Army Guard Maj. Darrin Smith, was Marietta’s 4th Civil Support Team, 202nd Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team and 1st Battalion, 171st Aviation, as well as Winder’s Detachment 1, 832nd Air Medical Company.

“In a scenario such as this, civil authorities would certainly need all the assets they can get their hands,” said Smith, who command the 4th CST. “Our goal is not only to remind them that such assets are always available to them, but also to evaluate the ‘interoperability’ between civil and military authority.”

Anyone, Smith said, among the bystanders watching the drill play out would most certainly have seen what they would have defined as utter chaos among the agencies in getting on the scene, getting set up and getting “into play.”
“That’s certainly a normal reaction,” he explained. “With so many responders involved in may look that way…to someone on the outside.

“But the reality is everyone from us to the Gordon County Sheriff’s Office to Calhoun Police and Fire to Gordon County Emergency Medical Service, Northwest Georgia Special Operations Unit and Georgia Emergency Management and a host of other agencies from the surrounding area, knows what it takes to get the job done,” Smith said while watching members of the CST get suited up for their part of the mission.

CST Soldiers were the first Georgia assets into play, calling in a 171st Aviation Black Hawk helicopter carrying needed supplies and men, and an 832nd Medical Company UH-1N Huey for getting the injured safely to an area medical facility. One of those “casualties” was the CST’s survey team leader, 1st Lt. Craig Keller.

Part of the scenario, Smith said, calls for CST members to enter the building, locate the simulated spill of an “unknown chemical and then try to identify and retrieve a sample of that substance. In the process, one of the team, Keller, would be injured. During the team’s exit from the school, he removed from the building, be decontaminated and then flown to a nearby hospital for treatment by the 832nd.

“It’s a very important part of the drill for us,” Smith said, watching Gordon County paramedics load Keller onto a waiting stretcher for the ride to the Huey standing by on the school football field. “This allows us to train on the ‘downed man rescue’ according to the CST’s mission tasking. “Not matter what precautions one takes, such a situation could happen, so we must be able to respond quickly and correctly,” he said.

While the CST did its job, so did the 202nd EOD. Explosive ordnance specialists Staff Sgt. David Courtney and Pfc. Jack Bullock used the unit’s two remotely controlled robots to search and locate improvised explosive devices inside the school and the gunmen’s car. Both “packages” were disposed of at the scene.

After the drill ended and everyone else packed up and headed home or into a review of how the drill went, EOD stuck around to show off their “tools” to one of the high school science classes.

“Being involved in the exercise is great training, and a great way to display the assets we and the Guard have available,” Courtney said.

Working with the students, or other groups when the chance presents its self, is an added bonus he and his fellow Soldiers always take advantage of, he added.