thedrifter
02-10-07, 08:50 AM
02/10/2007
Elite Marine unit has an audience
William Kaempffer , Register Staff
NEW HAVEN — Things to do:
Break through walls, rappel down elevator shaft, haul up victim with broken legs and possible neck injuries, lower him eight stories from roof for decontamination for possible radiological exposure from a terrorist attack.
So, it was a fairly typical day for an elite unit from the U.S. Marine Corps that, along with local law enforcement, conducted a major training exercise Friday at the long-vacant Pirelli office building on Sargent Drive near Ikea.
The hours-long drill utilized fire department vehicles, decontamination areas, assault rifle-toting SWAT members, Marines in protective suits and respirators, and one window washer (a dummy) dangling precariously from the face of the building. The sight created quite a spectacle for motorists driving along Interstate 95 and Sargent Drive. It even prompted at least one rubbernecking rear-end accident.
Friday was the third time the Chemical, Biological Incident Response Force conducted exercises in Connecticut.
In September 2006, the unit held a joint chemical response drill with local and state authorities at the United Illuminating compound along New Haven Harbor, and in 2005 a white powder response was conducted at the Wallingford postal center.
Friday’s drill, however, was front and center for thousands of motorists to see.
In real life, fast-deploying CBIRF attends events like presidential inaugurations and State of the Union addresses. In 2001 and 2004, it participated in the anthrax and ricin decontamination operations of the U.S. Senate office buildings on Capitol Hill.
The assemblage drew some perplexed looks from Ikea shoppers who arrived to an impressive scene.
“Is it OK to proceed?” asked one shopper from Westport. She saw two overturned cars near the entrance of the Pirelli building and thought something terrible had happened.
“It’s the drawn guns that concerned me,” she said.
The drill scenario, according to New Haven fire Capt. William Seward III, the department’s director of training who helped organize the exercise, was this: A car bomb exploded near the entrance, sending people fleeing inside and upstairs, where a secondary radiological device blew up on the fifth floor. First-responders were in the midst of search and rescue on the main floor when handheld meters detected radiation.
“As soon as the rad hits, it’s a different ball game,” said Eric Swartz, an instructor for the CBIRF team, who tried to throw some curveballs to the participants. “Now the real fun starts of determining where the radiation is coming from. What are your clean routes? What are your dirty routes?”
The emergency workers went in cold, aware only of the general scenario, organizers said. They reacted according to what they saw and learned inside the building.
“None of this is going to be (spoon) fed to the responders,” said Joshua Delvecchio, another CBIRF instructor, adding, “This is a great building for training.”
The Pirelli building, with its roughly 115,000 square feet, has been vacant for years. Ikea, which now owns it, has allowed New Haven SWAT to conduct exercises there, which might explain why most of the office doors were already kicked in.
That left the Marines to break through walls, rip off doors and pull down ceilings to find support beams for their rappelling ropes.
In addition to New Haven, fire departments from Wallingford, North Haven, Guilford and Fairfield participated in the drill.
Ellie
Elite Marine unit has an audience
William Kaempffer , Register Staff
NEW HAVEN — Things to do:
Break through walls, rappel down elevator shaft, haul up victim with broken legs and possible neck injuries, lower him eight stories from roof for decontamination for possible radiological exposure from a terrorist attack.
So, it was a fairly typical day for an elite unit from the U.S. Marine Corps that, along with local law enforcement, conducted a major training exercise Friday at the long-vacant Pirelli office building on Sargent Drive near Ikea.
The hours-long drill utilized fire department vehicles, decontamination areas, assault rifle-toting SWAT members, Marines in protective suits and respirators, and one window washer (a dummy) dangling precariously from the face of the building. The sight created quite a spectacle for motorists driving along Interstate 95 and Sargent Drive. It even prompted at least one rubbernecking rear-end accident.
Friday was the third time the Chemical, Biological Incident Response Force conducted exercises in Connecticut.
In September 2006, the unit held a joint chemical response drill with local and state authorities at the United Illuminating compound along New Haven Harbor, and in 2005 a white powder response was conducted at the Wallingford postal center.
Friday’s drill, however, was front and center for thousands of motorists to see.
In real life, fast-deploying CBIRF attends events like presidential inaugurations and State of the Union addresses. In 2001 and 2004, it participated in the anthrax and ricin decontamination operations of the U.S. Senate office buildings on Capitol Hill.
The assemblage drew some perplexed looks from Ikea shoppers who arrived to an impressive scene.
“Is it OK to proceed?” asked one shopper from Westport. She saw two overturned cars near the entrance of the Pirelli building and thought something terrible had happened.
“It’s the drawn guns that concerned me,” she said.
The drill scenario, according to New Haven fire Capt. William Seward III, the department’s director of training who helped organize the exercise, was this: A car bomb exploded near the entrance, sending people fleeing inside and upstairs, where a secondary radiological device blew up on the fifth floor. First-responders were in the midst of search and rescue on the main floor when handheld meters detected radiation.
“As soon as the rad hits, it’s a different ball game,” said Eric Swartz, an instructor for the CBIRF team, who tried to throw some curveballs to the participants. “Now the real fun starts of determining where the radiation is coming from. What are your clean routes? What are your dirty routes?”
The emergency workers went in cold, aware only of the general scenario, organizers said. They reacted according to what they saw and learned inside the building.
“None of this is going to be (spoon) fed to the responders,” said Joshua Delvecchio, another CBIRF instructor, adding, “This is a great building for training.”
The Pirelli building, with its roughly 115,000 square feet, has been vacant for years. Ikea, which now owns it, has allowed New Haven SWAT to conduct exercises there, which might explain why most of the office doors were already kicked in.
That left the Marines to break through walls, rip off doors and pull down ceilings to find support beams for their rappelling ropes.
In addition to New Haven, fire departments from Wallingford, North Haven, Guilford and Fairfield participated in the drill.
Ellie