Members of the South Central Mountains Regional Task Force’s Health and Medical Committee completed training offered by the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston, Ala.
The CDP is operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and is the only federally-chartered Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) training facility in the nation.
One hundred and forty-three professionals from hospitals, emergency medical services (EMS) and public health entities attended the training April 15-19. Participants attended one of three classes: “Healthcare Leadership for Mass Casualty Incidents,” “Hospital Emergency Response Training” and “Emergency Medical Operations.”
All attendees came together at the end of the week for an integrated capstone event (ICE) training exercise, which specifically involved multiple small domestic terrorist events in a fictional city, with more than 200 people needing decontamination, triage and treatment.
“We all came back with a better understanding of what we need to focus on to improve our responses back at our jobs in Pennsylvania,” said Sue Wertz, safety officer for Altoona Regional Health System.
The CDP develops and delivers advanced training for emergency response providers, emergency managers and other government officials from state, local and tribal governments. The CDP offers more than 50 training courses focusing on incident management, mass casualty response and emergency response to a catastrophic natural disaster or terrorist act. Training at the CDP campus is federally funded at no cost to state, local and tribal emergency response professionals or their agencies.
Resident training at the CDP includes health care and public health courses at the Noble Training Facility, the nation’s only hospital dedicated to training health care professionals in disaster preparedness and response.
A number of resident training courses culminate at the CDP’s Chemical, Ordnance, Biological and Radiological Training Facility (COBRA). The COBRA is the nation’s only facility featuring civilian training exercises in a true toxic environment, using chemical agents. The advanced, hands-on training enables responders to effectively prevent, respond to and recover from real-world incidents involving acts of terrorism and other hazardous materials.
Responders participating in CDP training gain critical skills and confidence to respond effectively to local incidents or potential WMD events.
Information about CDP training programs can be found at http://cdp.dhs.gov. Visit the “News & Media” tab at the top of the site to download images, share CDP training articles and find out what others are saying about CDP training.
For more information about the CDP, contact the CDP External Affairs Office at 256-847-2212/2316 or e-mail pao@cdpemail.dhs.gov.
