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During a ribbon-cutting event, Illinois Emergency Management
Agency Director Andrew Velasquez III joined officials from Scott Air
Force Base; local, state and federal officials; and emergency
response organizations.
"Training is integral to effective response, and regional
training facilities such as this will help more first responders
sharpen the special response skills that are necessary to meet
today's threats and challenges," said Velasquez. "Many firefighters
in southern Illinois are volunteers who have to schedule training
around their full-time jobs. This facility will make such training
more accessible and cost-effective. The bottom line is that lives
will be saved with the skills and experienced gained through the
continued use of this site."
In 2005, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security approved a
proposal by the Illinois Terrorism Task Force to construct regional
training centers in partnership with local communities to support
baseline and ongoing statewide deployable team training. With the
completion of the facility at Scott Air Force Base, 18 sites have
been established at a total cost of $3.5 million. The training sites
support DHS-approved curriculum in hazardous materials and technical
rescue.
Velasquez said the new training facility will be a tremendous
asset to the more than 3,000 firefighters who work within an hour's
drive of Scott Air Force Base, as well as many others located
throughout southern Illinois.
Before the Illinois Terrorism Task Force established regional
training capabilities throughout the state, emergency responders had
to travel to centralized locations to receive training in vertical
and confined space or structural collapse response. By enabling
responders to participate in training closer to home, local response
organizations save money on travel and personnel expenses related to
covering shifts for training participants, thus increasing local
participation in response teams that can be deployed to support
homeland security emergencies statewide.
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 The Illinois Terrorism Task Force provided a grant totaling
$299,018 to fund construction of the recently completed facility.
Scott Air Force Base supplied the site and ground preparation for
the project, while St. Clair County oversaw construction. The new
training facility consists of a vertical and confined space prop,
constructed by stacking multiple boxcar-like containers in a design
engineered and tested to be both stable and effective for training
purposes.
The task force previously provided more than $45,000 to the city
of Sauget for the purchase of a trailer and emergency response tools
for regional hazardous materials training and for development of a
structural collapse training house in Sauget.
The two facilities in the Metro East area will greatly enhance
training opportunities for responders in the region.
"This technical rescue training facility will enable our
all-volunteer Mutual Aid Box Alarm technical rescue team and other
southern Illinois teams to continue to hone their technical rescue
skills on a regular basis without having to travel out of our
response area," said Chief Randy Lay of the St. Clair Special
Emergency Services. "This critical training prepares these teams for
any technical rescue incident, from a natural disaster, such as an
earthquake, to a man-made event, such as a terrorist attack."
In addition to the training facility at Scott Air Force Base, the
Illinois Terrorism Task Force has supported development of regional
training sites in Bloomington-Normal, Cherry Valley, Decatur,
Effingham, Frankfort, Galesburg, Kankakee, Lisle-Woodridge-Downers
Grove, Macomb, Marion, Northern Illinois Public Safety Training
Academy in Glenview, Northlake, Peoria, Quad Cities, Quincy, Salem
and southern Kane County. Each site offers one or more of the
following types of training: ordinary construction collapse,
vertical and confined space rescue, or hazardous materials.
[Text from file received from
the
Illinois Office of
Communication and Information] |
