WV Search and Rescue Exercise

Folks,

The WV SAR exercise will be held this weekend, May 2, 3 and 4 on the border of Greenbrier and Pocahontas County. Please let me know right away if you are interested in going!

An interagency search and recovery exercise is to be held in cooperation with the West Virginia Air National Guard, Civil Air Patrol, WV Search and Rescue Council, WV Department of Homeland Security, Forrest Service, and county (Pocahontas and Greenbrier) EMS, emergency management, and law enforcement officials.

Scenario: A rocket, launched from Wallops Island, VA suffered a malfunction shortly after launch. A satellite, with unknown nuclear and/or hazardous chemicals aboard, reentered the atmosphere to the west of the launch site and broke up shortly after entering West Virginia. The debris field is extensive and widely scattered. NASA has requested the assistance of all available search resources to recover as many pieces of the destroyed satellite as possible.

Objective: Ensure that all search and rescue resources within the state can work together, communicate effectively, and successfully complete a wide-area search mission.

Information: Primitive camping will be available. All meals on Saturday (including a MRE lunch) will be provided. Sunday breakfast will also be included. Pocahontas SAR will handle staging and site registration.This is an announced exercise, in order to obtain maximum participation for all organizations. Incident Command will be handled by the Forest Service. Search management organization and execution will be coordinated by Bill Kersher, WVDHSEM. A UH-72 Lakota and a UH-60 Blackhawk will be on site for both inspection and participation in the drill.

Here is a link to information on the staging area.
http://www.wvsarco.org/2014/04/24/staging-area-for-sarex/
Tom