According to the Guard's Press Release on the exercise, "the three-day exercise will involve multiple realistic scenarios of mass casualty events in which local authorities will request assistance from the Colorado National Guard. Approximately 600 Soldiers, Airmen, first responders, evaluators, and role players will participate in this exercise involving a hypothetical terrorist attack using biological, radiological, and chemical weapons, the collapse of urban structures, and trapped victims."
The press release adds that the Colorado National Guard unit who will be responding is the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High-yield Explosives, (CBRNE)-Enhanced Response Force Package (CERF-P). A CERF-P is a rapidly-deployable National Guard unit capable of providing immediate response capability to a Governor for a CBRNE incident. CERF-P has five primary capabilities: medical, which provides evaluation and triaging for evacuation; decontamination; search and extraction, which searches for victims and extracts them from collapsed structures; communications. The final element is command and control. A CERF-P has 200 Citizen-Soldiers and -Airmen.
For more on the training and activities, visit the Colorado National Guard's site at http://www.co.ng.mil and be sure to check out their other online sites, including the Colorado National Guard Facebook Page, Colorado National Guard Twitter Feed, the Colorado National Guard's Flickr Page, and the Colorado National Guard YouTube Channel.
For any questions about the exercise, contact either Maj. Elena O'Bryan at (720) 250-1053 or Capt. Michael Odgers at (720) 250-1024.
