Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Airport "Drill" August 2008
CERT participates in CHO Airport Disaster Drill, August 16, 2008
The simulated crash of a small airliner near the south end of the runway, including a flaming fuselage and made-up volunteer victims, provided firefighters and emergency medical personnel with an opportunity to demonstrate their skills and test their plans for handling airport emergencies. For the first time CERT was "activated" as part of this triennial drill.
A group of immediately available CERT Traffic Team members was placed on alert after a CERT member monitoring public safety radio traffic reported "problems at the airport". Under the airport drill scenario, heavy smoke from the burning airliner was soon simulated to be drifting into the immediately adjacent neighborhood, prompting several "trouble breathing" calls to be dispatched to fire-rescue units. The Emergency Operations Center (EOC) soon determined that the neighborhood should be evacuated to a shelter to be setup at a nearby school. The EOC directed the CERT Coordinator to create and activate an Evacuation Team from among the alerted CERT members, and to deploy to the neighborhood to direct the evacuation of those present.
The CERT Evacuation Team gathered readily-available Internet information about the neighborhood, assembled in the neighborhood, established a command post, simulated taking control of inbound and outbound traffic, and physically went door-to-door notifying residents that they were to simulate evacuation. This event marked the initial assignment of an Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) liaison to a CERT team to assist with long-distance communications. He assisted with advising the EOC and the shelter site concerning simulated evacuees enroute to the shelter.