Search and Rescue Personnel of Capital Region Train in Nearby Lorton

Hundreds of search and rescue personnel from throughout the Capital Region have spent several days this past week training at the former Lorton Youth Reformatory off Landfill Drive. As part of Capital Shield 2011, teams from dozens of different agencies at the local, state and federal levels practiced their responses to worst-case scenarios.

On Wednesday, despite a driving rain, both volunteers and professionals took to abandoned buildings and fine-tuned their response to the simulated effects of the detonation of three bombs in the Washington, D.C. area.

Among those on-hand were four volunteers from the Fairfax County Community Emergency Response Team: Terry Aikins of Mount Vernon, Scott Sterling and Mary Moon, both of Centreville and Mike Piccione of Alexandria.

Aikins has been volunteering with Fairfax County CERT since 2006. He decided to become involved after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. "CERT offers the average citizen a chance to be prepared," Aikins said.

The training for the program is both rigorous and rewarding, as the nearly 30-hour course takes place over six or seven weeks. The program has over 650 volunteers just in Fairfax County alone.

"We're trained to keep people alive with basic medical care in a crisis," Aikins said. "A doctor would probably wince at what we do if it were under normal conditions, but considering that it's in a crisis situation we do whatever we have to do to keep someone alive."

Dan Pickens, Chief of Exercises for the United States Northern Command, of which Capital Shield is a part, believes that inter-agency cooperation is a critical, because in a crisis situation there is not much time for introductions. "We get to know our partners and know what they can do," Pickens said. "All the tail-sniffing is done."

"There's some different terminology," Dave Bogozi, a lieutenant in the Alexandria Fire Department said. "But we're 95 percent on the same sheet of music."

Pickens, who has been performing in such exercises since 1990, said that while techniques have not changed much in that time, the level of urgency certainly has.

The abandoned prison site was perfect as far as Richard Keevil, Chief of Pentagon Police, was concerned. "I'm completely impressed by it," Keevil said. "It's a credit to the county that they had the foresight to preserve it and put it to use."

"It's the type of multi-use venue," Keevil continued. "which allows us to fine-tune what we're doing in the technical rescue sector."

In one of the sites there was a maze of wooden tunnels, which was meant to replicate the experience rescue personnel might have when crawling on all fours trying to pull survivors from wreckage. Captain Matthew Burns of Fairfax County Fire and Rescue explained to visitors elaborated further on the facility's benefits: "We can operate here year round and it's a secured location." Burns said. "And when we do come here, we don't interrupt anyone. There aren't any neighbors to disturb."

As the day's public events came to a close Cory Wright, Director of Capital Shield, summarized the proceedings by emphasizing, "The unity of effort. We built the exercises around what our people said they needed and we came together."

Not that there will be much time to rest on the successes of the day. After a review, Wright and the rest of his team will begin planning next year's edition of Capital Shield.