A bomb erupts in the west entrance of the Patriot Center and starts a small fire. Panicked crowds begin to storm out of the building and rush to their cars. The second bomb detonates a minute later in the east entrance. By the time emergency vehicles arrive on-site, another explosion has ripped through a parked minivan outside the south entrance causing hundreds of casualties.
A terrible scenario — which is exactly what local emergency agencies were hoping to create and practice for on Thursday, June 2.
More than 300 county, regional, state and federal agents attended the "Patriot Challenge '05" at George Mason University for a simulation of an emergency exercise on terrorism. The individual agencies worked together in a mock bombing of a family circus event at the Patriot Center in order to demonstrate their ability in managing a mass casualty event within the county in a timely and orderly fashion.
The "Patriot Challenge '05" served as an opportunity for many to examine how well each agency could work with one another and allowed all to see the vast improvement in terrorist management since 9/11.
"Our main motive is to bring all the players together in order for better communication between each agency," said C. Douglass Bass, coordinator of the Fairfax County Office of Emergency Management, at the pre-simulation briefing. "The simulation, you will see, gives each player a chance to learn from one another."
Each agent, whether federal, regional or county, made note of the importance of working together to improve coordination, communication and cooperation between the neighboring jurisdictions. Without order and control present among differing agents, situations such as this simulation would have gotten out of hand and the progress visible today would have never occurred.
"It needs to be a teamwork effort," said James Rice II, supervisory special agent of the National Capital Response Squad. "Each agency has its own motives and methods that allow the process of handling and managing terrorist attacks to be carried out more effectively."
WHILE FAIRFAX COUNTY public safety has come a long way since 9/11, "there is still always room for improvement," said Robert Stalzer, deputy county executive. "There has been a great change in terrorist casualty control in the past four to five years. We have learned from our mistakes in the past, and we now have more resources to improve safety. Today is just another step in the right direction."
This planned simulation was part of a series of efforts around major metropolitan areas to train emergency response officials in all areas of terrorist attacks. Directed and managed by controllers and evaluators, the emergency exercise at the Patriot Center proved to be efficient and precise. However, "we can never be too prepared," said Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerry Connolly (D-At-large). "Living just outside the nation's capital, we are a platform for target and always need to be on guard and ready for anything," he said.