Today on Forest Drive in Belmopan in front of the Police Training School the pursuit of disaster preparedness continued in an accident simulation.
It had all the elements of a real disaster: a wrecked car, grown men wailing for momma, and a scampering horde of emergency response specialists; good for preparedness, great for tv, and what better way to spend a Thursday on Forest Drive in Belmopan City?
Here's what it looked like:
Keith Swift Reporting,
Someone call 911! There are bodies strewn across the highway and grown men, soldiers even, are wailing inconsolably, crying for relief. It looks like the worse traffic accident you've ever seen but relax it's just an accident simulation or as they say: this is just a test. And what are they testing? Well NEMO working with counterparts from Central America, the Caribbean and the United States created what's called a mass casualty incident to assess, once more, Belize's disaster preparedness.
Col. Jadwin Mayeaux, Deputy Dir. Homeland Security - Louisiana
"This exercise is an opportunity to apply the training that our students have gotten over the last two and a half days to address the incident command system; how different agencies: fire, law enforcement, and emergency medical services come together on a scene and learn how to work together on a scene perfectly and efficiently to save lives and protect property."
And over the past 48 hours disaster managers have been honing their preparedness skills in workshops at the Belmopan Convention Hotel and after this morning's chaos on the roadway, they made on-site and in-office assessments.
Maj. Gilbert Swazo, Training Officer - NEMO
"What happened is that an accident occurred this morning and initially an on scene commander was on the scene and then several other agencies within the country such as health, police, the fire department and all other leading responding agencies came on the scene because we had over 25 people who were fatally injured in this accident. So once the incident commander was on the scene all other agencies like health and NEMO personnel reported to the scene with a view that they were able to coordinate from a central command location all the actions that were being carried out so that we don't waste resources and at the same time our prime objective is to minimize any loss of life or save lives as quickly as possible."
Again this was just a test and so no lives were lost today but we do hope many valuable lessons were gained.
The disaster conference ended with a certificate ceremony where at least two Oscars had to be handed out to the participating soldiers.