They got to blow up something. It makes a drill seem real. Two men dressed in bomb suits and a robot blasted a device next to two compressed air tanks in the Mission Valley parking lot of the Town and Country Resort Hotel last week in a joint training exercise.
The point of the drill was for San Diego County regional hazardous materials specialists, emergency responders and explosive ordinance technicians to simulate their response to the threat of explosives and poisonous gas.
“We demonstrated a coordinated, joint entry approach to a combined explosives and hazardous materials incident. We showed the cooperation we have between agencies here in San Diego County,” said Nick Vent, Environmental Health Specialist with the County of San Diego.
The demonstration was part of a three-day Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear and Explosive (CBRNe) World Congress and Exhibition in San Diego that included 400 people from 19 countries including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, France, Singapore, Korea, Russia, Iran and South Africa, said Gwyn Winfield, CBRNe conference producer and magazine editor. The conference ended on Halloween.
Vent, who helped set up the demonstration with San Diego Fire-Rescue, said the demonstration was abbreviated to 40 minutes but in real life it would take hours. In the drill scenario a hotel guest discovers two compressed gas tanks rigged with C-4 explosives in the parking lot. The hotel guest also saw suspicious truck in the area. The San Diego regional Law Enforcement Coordination Center (LECC) followed up on that tip.
As part of the drill, conventioneers were given secret intelligence from the anti-terrorism unit at the LECC stating that C-4 plastic explosives and toxic gases had been stolen over the past couple weeks in the area, Vent said. The drill scenario was that the CBRNe conference with world law enforcement leaders was being targeted by the terrorists.
County hazardous materials team members and San Diego Fire-Rescue Metro Arson Strike Team members showed how they could deploy to the incident and consult with each other. In the demonstration the Bomb Squad used a pair of robots to go in and assess the tanks and explosives situation. Then after the robot neutralized the explosive threat the two San Diego Fire-Rescue responders suited up and properly controlled the cylinders that were damaged.
“It was a good cross-discipline training opportunity,” said Glen Holder, San Diego Fire Rescue Battalion Chief.
The robot can fire a supercharged round at the explosive device to disable it.
Ultimately, the drill ended with the arrest of two terror suspects driving the stolen box truck of explosives at Fiesta Island. Vent notes that in a real scenario, the County would likely send a second team out to manage this separate incident while the first HIRT team managed the tanks incident.
