Today, most of the activities and topics centered around search, rescue and dealing with threats against our communities. Courtesy of LAPD and the LA Sheriff’s Department’s personnel, an excellent demonstration of highly trained special response personnel a number of scenarios and response options to rescue victims of an assault or threat.
I won’t go into specifics but I did include a few general photos that of which I thought may be of interest.
I was impressed with the precision in which the exercises were executed. It was clear that the two departments work and train well together. Despite the population differences between LA and Northfield, the scenarios portrayed here today, could just as easily take place in our community. Obviously, we don’t have the access to the large volume of aircraft provided in this demonstration; however, we are fortunate in Northfield to have excellent working relationships with two well-trained emergency response teams and have agreements with others in the event of an emergency. We are also very fortunate that the Minnesota State Patrol does maintain an air wing that includes both fixed wing aircraft as well as helicopters. The Rice County Sheriff’s Department has a water rescue unit as does the Northfield Fire Department.
The exercises today again reinforced the need to have good working relationships between the various public safety organizations to be prepared to deal with any type of emergency that may arise.