BOISE, Idaho —
On Thursday, people near the Boise Airport may have seen a large emergency presence as multiple agencies and volunteers completed a full-scale disaster exercise.
The staged scenario was prepared in accordance with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules and regulations, involving multiple emergency response agencies and nearly 50 volunteers from the community acting as injured patients.
The scenario played over a condensed timeline in order to make the incident as realistic as possible.
“The Boise Airport simulated a full-scale disaster exercise,” said Sean Briggs the Business Development Manager at the Boise Airport. “It allows the Boise Airport, along with a number of our community partners to test our emergency preparedness.”
Community partners like the Boise Fire Department and Boise Police Department, along with paramedics, hospitals, and other agencies took part in the training.
“We had about 50 volunteers join us and about 10 different agencies participate in this full-scale disaster exercise,” Briggs said.
Thursday’s drill was a chance for different agencies to not only test and experience the disaster scenario, but also the response, Briggs said. He also said a drill of this complexity takes six to twelve months to prepare.
“A lot of thought and conversation goes into it? Because there are so many different partners that participate,” Briggs said. “Overall, the event went very well today, we're able to work with our partners, everything went as expected.”
Briggs went on to say that the agencies will get together and look at how the actual scenarios played out at BOI and look at what they did well and things that can be improved upon in the future.
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