As the sun went down on the evening of October 21, groups of emergency responders worked to rescue survivors as part of a training exercise at Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service’s (TEEX) Disaster City® in College Station, Texas. Typically, these training exercises are standalone operations for individual classes, but this October, two courses adapted their training into one larger disaster scenario.
The innovative training managers and instructors at TEEX combined their courses into one multi-faceted simulation that would offer more realistic and advanced training. In this scenario, a tornado impacted Disaster City, destroying a building and leaving survivors buried in a rubble pile. Meanwhile, a car had driven into a trench, requiring special tools and techniques to extricate the passenger. Adding to the authenticity and difficulty, TEEX held this exercise in the evening, forcing trainees to consider scene lighting.
Of the joint training event, Training Manager Scott Salter says, “Not many training facilities could pull off something like this. It was a perfect storm of having all the pieces in place. We were able to incorporate the training into a larger scenario that really challenged our students, and they absolutely loved it.”
For more information about TEEX’s Disaster City and Rescue programs, please visit https://teex.org/program/rescue/.