Carbon County emergency responders know the importance of being prepared for all types of disasters.

From fires to shootings, the police, fire departments, EMS and other responders practice what to do, so they are prepared just in case something would happen.

This week, 33 people from various emergency services as well as health care and state agencies gathered at the Carbon County Emergency Management Agency to take a daylong training regarding understanding and planning for terrorist or school bombing incidents. The event was hosted by the Northeast PA Regional Counter-Terrorism Task Force and the Carbon County EMA.

Michael DiBartolo is an instructor for New Mexico Tech Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center of Socorro, New Mexico.

He explained that the trainings the participants were receiving were for incident response to terrorist bombings, as well as school bombings.

“The class is designed for first responders to recognize what terrorists might use for explosive devices, how to build them and stuff like that,” DiBartolo said. “That way, when they are on scenes or going to locations, they know what to look for and what would actually keep them and the public safe.”

The same concept was held with regard to schools.

DiBartolo said that the second training focused on school environments, creating evacuation plans, how to deal with bomb threats made at school, searching school property and making sure students are safe.

The group was given scenarios about a possible device at a certain location and had to work through figuring out how to safely evacuate students, or decide if sheltering in place was a better option.

DiBartolo said that the participants now have the opportunity to travel to the New Mexico Tech location for a weeklong training course that is more hands-on, with actual explosives being detonated, working the scenes following an explosion and working with keeping the public safe.

This training is paid for through the federal government.

“It really gives you a nice background on everything that’s going on in the world,” he said. “We have a lot of videos showing a car blowing up or a pipe bomb, but when you’re out there, you see it happening. You feel the blast wave, the shock wave so it gives you more of an understanding on how far people want to get away from the stuff, fragmentation effects and different scenarios.”

Mark Nalesnik, Carbon County EMA coordinator, said that the Northeast PA Regional Counter-Terrorism Task Force hosts trainings like this through the 10-county region and Carbon County was fortunate enough to be chosen as a hosting site.

“It’s a huge benefit to our first responders, community, police, fire, EMS,” Nalesnik said. “It’s not your ordinary or typical first responder training course.”

Nalesnik said that he has been approached by several of the participants who are interested in going to New Mexico for the hands-on training.

In addition, the exercise also helped the EMA practice with getting information out to the public through the media.