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>>CLIFF PARKER: New York State has been and continues to be a prime terrorism target.
We have a responsibility in the state to train our first responders to be able to
handle not only natural disasters
and their regular response jobs, but to be prepared for another
terrorist attack...prepared for the major disasters.
So using the State Preparedness Training Center is one of the methods
that we reach out and make our
first responders in New York state more prepared.
The decision to
uh... develop
the State Preparedness Training Center
started around 2004, 2005.
We decided to locate it centrally in
New York state in the Western Mohawk Valley.
It's about 4 or 5 miles off of the throughway
so it's easily accessible.
A review of various sites from around
the area
determined that the former Oneida County airport
was being vacated.
It was an ideal training facility:
the use of the hangars, the use of the wide open spaces, the runways...gave us lots
of opportunity
to develop a
extensive training center utilizing
different facilities
making it available for all
of the categories of first responders.
>>BILL DAVIS: New York State Preparedness Training Center is a unique venue.
For the last several years
there's been an appetite for first responders
to be able to communicate,
work together, and act like a team when they show up in an emergency whether
they're being
called for a 911 emergency or a terrorism event .
The public expects that.
>>CLIFF PARKER: One of things about our state preparedness training center
that's unique and training facilities in the state is we train
mutiple categories of first responsers: police, fire, EMS, public works,
and more together.
So we're not focused on just law enforcement or focused just on fire ,
but that whole first responder category training to gether, interacting .
>>BILL DAVIS: No other place in New York state allows police, fire, and EMS,
emergency services, to come together and work
collaboratively
in a training environment.
It's a unique organization, it's a unique
complex that's being built out here and one of a kind as far as...uh...as far as we
know.
The state preparedness training allows all of those disciplines to come together
and work as a united force which is exactly how they're going to respond in
the field.
>>RICK MATHEWS: Most of the courses that are delivered here are going to be those involving
scenario based training,
functional type training,
where they try to integrate different first response groups together to...uh...
in realistic scenario based settings.
We have two simulated hotels,
we have an office complex. >>KERRY CLARK: One of the hangars
is being converted into a cityscape into a facade of buildings ...
a place were officers can train and
fire simunition materials, in other words, paintballs, etcetera ...
they don't have to worry about dirtying up someone's building...it's a place where
they can train safely and
continue with training aspects that are constantly changing and evolving.
>>BOB STALLMAN: One of the hangars that we have up here...we have a
scale model
fashioned after a
city called Rosterfield
and we use this
scale model
in a couple different training classes that we have...we have one that has a hotel in it, an airport, schools ...
Basically a scale city
where they setup
where they would
set up protective zones
and protect against a scale model attack.
>>KERRY CLARK: There's a bus
inside of this same hanger
were the officers can train how to respond to incidents that occur on a
bus.
There or for improvised breaching
doors and other facilities where they can train how to get into doors.
The entire thing...i think one of the
greatest things about it is, being in upstate New York here,
it's indoors.
It's in a hanger.
So officers can come here and train...have a great classroom
that is climate controlled
and then go to a training facility that, even if it's snowing outside, they can train
unobstructed and
do good work