On Thursday, March 15, 2007, local authorities conducted a drill at the Viola M. Coleman High School that included practically every first responding unit in the region. The MPD conducts frequent drills -- see SWAT'd in this blog for photos and an inside account of the receiving end of a SWAT drill. But the one on March 15 was possibly the biggest so far in the region.
The event involved the Midland and Odessa Police Departments, the Midland Fire Department, the Midland Sheriff's Office, the school district police, the Department of Public Safety, Midland College EMS students playing the role of victims and hostages, and I'm sure there are others I've overlooked.
Safety First. Local residents may recall an incident a decade ago in which a local volunteer was accidentally shot during a drill with a real bullet fired by someone who failed to follow the safety rules. Consequently, safety has been of primary concern in subsequent drills, and rules have been strictly enforced. And on Thursday safety officers spent a great deal of time and effort making certain that all weapons brought onto the scene were loaded with either blanks or Simunition, cartridges that discharge a paintball like projectile.
Shots Fired. The event began at approximately 12:54 pm with a dispatcher's broadcast advising of armed men entering the school building. As it played out, the scenario involved snipers, gunmen, hostages, wounded people and lots of explosives: pipe bombs, a Claymore mine and other IEDs.
Today's Bomb Squad. Readers of this blog may remember Fire in the Hole! about the Midland Police Department Explosive Ordinance Division in the pre-robot days. Back then someone had to suit up and get up close and personal with a bomb. That all changed when they got the robots.
The Midland PD and Odessa PD both acquired robots at around the same time. And while they've been put to use before, I believe this is the first time that they have both been put on display together. (You can see my photos at the link at the end of this article.)
Odessa bought the big one, the Remotec Mark VA1 at a cost of $194,509. And Midland bought the F6A at a cost of $155,944. (Prices are from Tina Jauz's 3/14/07 media release.) The two bomb squads plan to work together, so it made sense to diversify even though both robots were made by the same manufacturer. Each robot has certain features that make it more efficient than the other in certain circumstances. For example, the F6A could crawl down the aisle of an airliner, but the big one couldn't.
Yes, they are expensive. And tack a "home land security" tag on any product, and I'm sure the price goes through the roof. But bomb squad robots have been put through their paces by the U.S. military, and hopefully, the bugs have been worked out. But lets face it, that's a small price to pay when the alternative is to send a human being into a life threatening situation.
The robots have at least three cameras each. The operator watches a screen and directs the robot with remote control levers. When the operator locates the IED he steers the robot toward it. Then he extends the arm, opens the claws, and picks up the device, all of this while watching it on a screen. There's that fiber optic cable trailing the robot from a spool on the back, so the operator has to constantly be aware of where it is so that the robot doesn't accidentally run over it.
Once the robot has the IED in its grip, the operator steers it to a plastic bucket hanging from the end of a crane attached to an open-top bomb container. Once the device is in the bucket, the crane lifts it over the top and lowers it into the container. In a real life situation, the container would then be towed to a location where the IED could be lifted out by the crane and placed in a spot where it could be disarmed or detonated.
In a multiple IED situation it might take a few trips to get rid of them all, but in the March 15 exercise after the first one was placed in the bomb container the rest were placed in a dumpster. ("Hello, Sanitation department? Could you send a truck to pick up a dumpster? Uh, send the new guy.")
The event was a training exercise, and the various groups really got put to the test. Most of the skills that a person has to call on in a situation like that have to be learned, and those skills are most likely depreciable if they aren't used. Hopefully, the participants won't ever have to use those skills except in training exercises.
And for a spectator like me, it was a terrific time shooting pictures while the participants shot blanks. In a real life situation I would never have been able to get so close to the action, but it was only a drill.
And now the photos. Rather than pasting a few pictures in this post, I've posted a bunch of them at a single location. Click here to see clickable thumbnails of 80 photos.
It was a fund raiser for the Midland, Texas, Meals-on-Wheels, and for a mere $25 donation it was all the food a person could eat. It was prepared by local eateries. And there was lots and lots of food -- there must have been a couple of dozen different types of food available. And what a nice variety -- a wide range, in fact, everywhere from H.E.B. to Hooters.
A mere sampling from each one would be too much food for a normal person to eat. Pigging out is normal, right? Save room for dessert. There was plenty there for the sweet teeth, especially the scrumptious candy from Susie's South Forty. Yum!
