LSU NCBRT/ACE Brings Together One Hundred Responders from Across West Virginia for Large-Scale Threat Training

August 27, 2024

West Virginia

In the event of a large-scale attack or threat, agencies from all across the region will need to work together to stop the danger. Over one hundred emergency responders in Charleston, West Virginia, practiced this skill earlier this month when LSU NCBRT/ACE delivered its course, A Prepared Jurisdiction: Integrated Response to Critical Incidents.

The class was held July 30 – August 1 at West Virginia State University, Shawnee Sports Complex, the Emergency Operations Center at Metro 911 and West Virginia University Medicine Thomas Hospital. This course is designed to improve interagency collaboration and examine a jurisdiction’s overall preparedness capability during a complex threat or terror attack. Disciplines within a community must be able to recognize their roles and the roles of other first responder disciplines when preparing for and responding to disasters.

The Integrated Response class course in West Virginia was the culmination of a years-long partnership between LSU NCBRT/ACE and the West Virginia response community. Mike Oakley, Security Liaison for Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority, served as the point of contact for LSU NCBRT/ACE and played a major role in coordinating the class.

“The need to train across disciplines is sometimes a challenging problem,” Oakley said. “The fact that we’ve had LSU come to bring these classes is one way to take the next step.”

Oakley said that coordinating training among different agencies to West Virginia can be difficult at times because state and local resources are spread out among large, mostly rural areas. This class provided an opportunity for different disciplines to get together, train, find areas for improvement, and discuss future coordination.

“Being able to bring together responders from different agencies was really beneficial,” Oakley continued. “Our sheriff’s office is only one of two certified bomb squads in the state. It also has a large SWAT, but smaller agencies that don’t get to train with those resources were ecstatic to learn that they had those capabilities, and now they know those resources are available if they should ever need them.”

WVSU Police Chief Reginald Patterson coordinated that university’s involvement in the course. He said that being able to bring together different stakeholders was a unique training opportunity.

“This was the first time I was able to see all the pieces of the puzzle put together and capture the big picture,” Patterson said. “The initial call to 911 Metro, to the response of fire, law enforcement, medics and ambulance, to hospital triage, to emergency management rollout and other specialized subsets within each of these groups was an eye opener. As we are all separate entities, we know some of our strengths and weaknesses, but those were put to the test. We all obtained a better perspective of the task at hand.”

Breanna Rich, resource coordinator for WVU Medicine Thomas Hospitals, said that the opportunity to involve hospital staff brought a fresh look at the health aspect of emergency response and motivated hospital employees to think about the broad scope of working together during a complex threat.

“They were able to see a world view not often afforded to hospital staff,” Rich said. “Now they want more education; they want to be heavily involved in process development going forward and they are firmly invested in our growth. More than renewing a passion for learning, this week helped our facility begin to forge solid relationships with our counterparts in Public Service. Planning for future collaboration and education began the very next day.”

Agencies represented during the training included departments across Kanawha County, Charleston Police Department, WVU Medicine Thomas Hospitals, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Dunbar Fire Department, South Charleston Fire Department, Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office, Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority, West Virginia State University, Saint Alban’s Police Department, Nitro Police Department, FBI, and Metro 911.

 

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About LSU NCBRT/ACE:

LSU NCBRT/ACE is a nationally recognized center for emergency preparedness and response training located at Louisiana State University’s flagship campus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We provide mobile training to both the national and international emergency response community. LSU NCBRT/ACE has expertise in research, development and delivery of training in the areas of specialized law enforcement operations; biological incident response; food and agriculture safety and security; school safety; and instructional design and technique. For more information on LSU NCBRT/ACE’s courses and resources, please visit ncbrt.lsu.edu.