JUNEAU, Alaksa - Dressed in hazardous material protective suits, two Airmen from the Virginia National Guard slowly crept into a quiet building June 9 at AJ Dock on Juneau’s shore.
Virginia National Guard’s 34th Civil Support Team (CST) members Tech Sgt. Taylor Lincoln and Staff Sgt. Samantha Sanders were acting on an intelligence report that foreign terrorists were planning to carry out a chemical attack in Alaska’s capital. Coast Guard Sector Southeast marine science technicians corroborated the report, discovering a chemical lab at the port facility.
Lincoln and Sanders went through the rigorous process of meticulously donning their Level A hazmat suits before carefully entering the makeshift lab.
After a 716th Explosive Ordnance Disposal team cleared the area for explosive devices, Lincoln and Sanders found many glass tubes signifying a lab had been assembled to churn out nerve agents capable of killing hundreds of people in minutes. After the Airmen exited the building and called up their report, they removed their hazmat suits while dozens of disembarking cruise ship passengers gawked at the unexpected spectacle.
The training scenario was part of Exercise ORCA 25, a full-scale, all-hazards chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives joint and interagency training exercise that tests and evaluates the operational capability of the whole-of-government emergency management system.
National Guard participants included the 103rd Civil Support Team, Alaska National Guard; the 9th Civil Support Team, California National Guard; the 83rd Civil Support Team, Montana National Guard; the 102nd Civil Support Team, Oregon National Guard; and the 34th CST, Virginia National Guard.
Other military units included Coast Guard Sector Southeast and the 716th Explosive Ordnance Disposal. Participating federal agencies included the FBI and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. State and local agencies included the Tlingit and Haida Emergency Operation Center, Juneau Police Department and Capital City Fire/Rescue.
Alaska Army National Guard Capt. Kyle Rehberg, 103rd CST operations officer, said his unit planned and controlled the complex exercise that had scenarios in the state Capitol area in addition to AJ Dock.
“We are acting as the white cell operation, so we have complete situational awareness of everything that is going on down range,” Rehberg said. “We are actively monitoring when teams are going in, what their objectives are, what they are finding, what they report back up to the unified command, and we can help with issues with equipment or personnel.”
During past exercises involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the 103rd CST trained in other Alaska communities, but Rehberg said the capital provided rare and challenging training opportunities.
“What makes Juneau unique is it’s the state capital, and it’s a heavy cruise ship destination with a lot of tourists in the summer,” Rehberg said. “So, we think about what would a potential WMD event look like with those two variables and about what kind of constraints are involved with cruise ships and state government buildings that we wouldn’t necessarily think about back home at Anchorage.”
During their entry, what CSTs call their encounters with weapons of mass destruction, Lincoln and Sanders had to quickly assess the situation by piecing together the discovery of documents detailing toxic chemical formulas, reading the labels of chemical vials and interpreting the lab setup to determine what the rogue chemists intended to do.
“We found a bomb-making setup and a drone that is likely a dispersal device,” said Lincoln, a native of Dixmont, Maine. “We also found lab gear that was probably two steps away from possibly being a G-series agent setup.”
G-series agents include tabun, sarin, soman and cyclosarin, all formulated by Germany before and during World War II. The 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack killed 14 and injured dozens, demonstrating the devastating effect of weapons of mass destruction.
To protect themselves, Lincoln said the team wears a suit that offers protection superior to the standard military chemical suit because of deliberate and persistent exposure to hazardous agents.
“We use a Level A hazmat suit,” Lincoln said. “It’s a fully encapsulated suit, and we wear a self-contained breathing apparatus that allows us to breathe down range. With that suit, we are able to go into most chemical and biological environments.”
During the entry, the team had to look through two layers of protection of their gas mask and their suit visor and use thick protective gloves to paint an accurate picture of the lab. Upstairs, another team found a simulated source of cesium, which is a radioactive substance that could be used to make a dirty bomb designed to irradiate an area.
To safely and effectively operate under such real-world hazardous and trying conditions, CST members attend the Civil Support Skills Course at the U.S. Army’s Chemical Defense Training Facility at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where they are exposed to real chemical agents.
After gathering and transmitting photos of the lab and calling up several reports, team members exited the building and decontaminated their suits before carefully extracting themselves to safety and comfort.
Sanders said she relished the tough Alaska training.
“It’s a great opportunity,” said Sanders, a native of Tucson, Arizona. “We have gorgeous scenery, and you can’t complain about that, but we get to come together and work with other teams. We’re East Coast, so we work the teams there, but we don’t often see the teams that are here. It’s nice to branch out, make new connections and see how other teams perform the job we do.”