SELFRIDGE AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Mich. - Law enforcement agencies trekked to the Michigan National Guard's 127th Wing here, Feb. 9 as the FBI held a field office visit and table top exercise designed to guide actions that would be utilized during an actual weapon of mass destruction contingency response in the Detroit area.
More than 20 agencies were represented at the morning event. Greg Adair, crisis management specialist with the FBI, acted as the exercise facilitator. He said, "There is value in the 'what if' conversations that an exercise like this bring up. If the local responders are already communicating, it will be apparent. If not, this will be a light bulb moment."
The goals of the exercise included gauging the ability of multiple agencies to work together to assess local threats and the ability of those agencies to deploy local response capabilities.
"This is really a national-level exercise, hosted at Selfridge where our multi-agency personnel are local subject matter experts supporting the federal agencies," said Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Mike Carroll, 127th Wing emergency manager.
Several Michigan Air and Army National Guard entities were present, including the Guard's 51st Civil Support Team, many members of the 127th Wing's first responders and Mission Support Group, and representatives from the state Emergency Operations Center.
Also present were representatives from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Dearborn Police Department, Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard's Sector Detroit Enforcement Division, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Detroit Police Department, and the Macomb County Sheriff's office, as well as the Detroit FBI office.
Air Force Maj. Brian Davis,127th Wing chief of plans, also attended the robust scenario conversation, which focused on regional response actions for a local terrorist threat of a WMD.
"What we have when agencies come together like this at Selfridge is not only the sharing of corporate knowledge that benefits our community in the long run, but also the multi-agency, overhead cost-sharing construct of Team Selfridge, which continues to emphasize our efficiencies here at the base," he said.
As host to Team Selfridge at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, the 127th Wing integrates DHS, DoD, federal, state, and local agencies in emergency response exercises of all kinds throughout the year.