Just a friendly heads up …
From the website http://www.texsar.org/urbanshield/
The drill is a component of the Greater Austin Area Urban Shield Full-Scale Preparedness Exercise and will include emergency management and hospital personnel, law enforcement and hazmat responders from Travis, Hays and Williamson County. The drill is designed to test responders’ skills at handling a real event involving contamination and mass casualties.
Volunteers will act as victims, which may include participating in the decontamination process and being watered down Some of those serving as victims also will be made up with moulage to resemble injuries.
Saturday, December 1, 2012, at the Travis County Exposition Center, 7311 Decker Lane in Austin.
It is likely that nothing will happen before, during or after this exercise as contaminants are involved. Then again stranger things have happened. Austin Texas is home to about 85 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, one of those being Hospira, the maker of Sodium thiopental also known as Sodium Pentothal a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anesthetic, the first of three drugs administered during most lethal injections in the United States.
We’ve known of other exercises that have gone live either during [9/11] or around the time of the exercise with the most recent being the ‘Batman Theater Shooting’. It was reported that Colorado university staged an identical exercise the very same day of the deadly ‘Batman’ massacre where students were trained how to react to a gunman firing at people in a movie theater. See – Real life shooting imitates training exercise at Parker medical school [denverpost.com]
Urban Shield even has a video explaining “Why We Are Here!” which opens with clips of September 11 2001 and leads to other scenarios including Urban Warfare training. You can watch it here – http://urbanshield.tv/view?q=4fe80550196c1.flv
I thought this was funny. From the application[PDF] to participate in the Austin Texas Urban Shield –
I attest that the information I provided on this application is true and accurate. I understand that in order to participate in Urban Shield 2012, I may be subject to a criminal background check. I hereby authorize the Urban Shield Coordination Team or their designee to conduct a criminal background check using the information I provided.
I recognize that there are certain inherent risks associated with volunteering in Urban Shield 2012. I assume full responsibility for personal injury of myself and further release and discharge the City of Austin and City subordinate departments, Counties of Hays, Travis, and Williamson and their subordinate offices/departments, and hosting agencies for any injuries, lost or damaged items arising out of my participation, whether caused by the fault of myself or others.
Cytel Group, Inc. will facilitate the training, planning, preparation, and execution of the Austin Urban Shield exercise. Cytel Group, Inc. will assist in all aspects of project management during the planning phase, act as an advisory group during the preparation phase, and provide overall evaluators during the execution phase.
Cytel Group, Inc., Castro Valley, CA, has successfully developed, coordinated, and managed the Urban Shield exercise in the San Francisco Bay Area Region since 2007 and has provided oversight and assistance to the Urban Shield exercises in New Orleans in 2009 and Boston in May 2011.
Rancid News 