VALDOSTA, Ga. -- Local emergency response forces worked with Moody Air Force Base Airmen to participate in a first response training at Dec. 13, here.
Fire departments from Lowndes County, Valdosta, Tifton and Albany, the 23d Civil Engineer Squadron’s Fire Department and Emergency Management Flights, and 23d Medical Group Bioenvironmental Engineering Flight responded to the aftermath of a simulated tornado hitting the Du Pont Crop Protection factory.
“Training is the best thing you can do. The more you train the better you get,” said Lloyd Green, Lowndes County Fire Rescue fire marshal. “Training together with multiagencies, including Moody and other communities, you get to know the personnel, you get comfortable with those personnel and get comfortable working together and integrating together.”
Training together not only strengthens their skills, but also bonds the different agencies while discovering how they can benefit each other.
“[Moody] has resources we don’t and we have resources they might not have and together we can see what the capability is by bringing our communities closer together and support each other,” Green said. “We have an understanding of each other’s capabilities, where one may have a strength, the other one might have a little bit of a weakness, with the weakness and strength together we can always have a positive outcome on what we do.”
The exercise was divided into three separate scenarios to test various operations of search and rescue. One portion was the Georgia Search and Rescue, comprised of the several fire departments, testing their capabilities for high angle rescue. Another scenario was the extradition of personnel that were trapped in a confined area. The final was a hazardous material exercise, which Moody Airmen participated in.
“Our job was to go in, identify it and then mitigate the hazard or leaking substance,” said Tech. Sgt. Nicholas Olson. “Initially it was a little slow, but as far working together, we are all professionals, we have all had basically the same training so we mesh together pretty good. We all talk the same language when it comes to response, so it was like one team who had been working together before. I thought it was really good.”
Olson continued that while practicing their skills are important to staying effective, all the units agreed that being able to work together was the most beneficial part of the exercise.
“The big one was just the working together portion,” Olson said. “That seamless piece, that if something does happen, we are able to [respond] efficiently. It’s a lot easier when you’ve already met somebody and trained with them.
After completing the training and evaluating what each agency can bring to the table during an incident, all agreed that they learned a lot, now feel comfortable working with each other and look forward to doing again.
“As far as the relationship goes, the interactions with those other agencies to make connections, improve their training and foster those relationships was really cool,” Olson said. “We are already setting up some other training for the future.”