Wing wraps up another Condor Crest

  • Published
  • By Monica Mendoza
  • 21st Space Wing Public Affairs staff writer
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. --  It was a week of havoc on Peterson Air Force Base - natural disasters, active shooters, planted radiological agents, and building lockdowns. During the quarterly Condor Crest exercise on Peterson AFB emergency crews wailed down the roads and emergency response and medical crews worked for five days.

This Condor Crest exercise, Aug. 16 to 20, left no skill untested. From start to finish, an estimated 75 percent of the base personnel were involved in one of the many scenarios that required employees to evacuate buildings, barricade doors for building lockdowns or seek shelter within the building when tornado sirens sounded.

All segments of the base were under siege at some point during the exercise, which is meant to test deployment, emergency management and compliance of Air Force standards.

"We put a lot more into this exercise," said Bill Edwards, 21st Space Wing exercise evaluation team chief. "The scope was so much larger than our standard Condor Crest."

In this exercise, seven bomb threats were called in to seven locations at the same time. The test was to see if base personnel could be supported by alternate locations.

"It was a great exercise in that respect," Mr. Edwards said. "We did 15 installation bomb threats throughout the exercise - that is well over anything we've done in the past."

This exercise kept the 21st Space Wing emergency responders working non-stop, often through the night, for the duration of the exercise. They responded to a tornado that smacked the north side of the base and left more than 30 people injured and in need of care. They worked a radiological threat at the base exchange when seven people entered the medical clinic with radioactive poisoning, and they responded to killings on base by a active shooter. They practiced working with off-base agencies, including Flight for Life emergency helicopter transport, the Colorado Springs 911 call center and the Colorado Springs SWAT team.

The reason for testing so many areas in one exercise was twofold: the Air Force mandates that each wing tests certain emergency management activities each year. For example, the wing needs to test its response to a natural disaster, mass casualties and a chemical or radiological event. A second reason to go full throttle this time was to prepare for an Operational Readiness Inspection, which could happen at any time and could test any of the emergency response reactions tested in this Condor Crest exercise.

There was a lot to cover this month and Col. Stephen N. Whiting, 21st Space Wing commander, authorized two days of around the clock operations during the exercise - something that has not happened in recent years, Mr. Edwards said.

Condor Crest subject matter experts -- including Master Sgt. Daniel Cockrell, 21st Medical Group, Tech. Sgt. Edward Salazar, 21st Dental Squadron, and Tech. Sgt. Ryan Guthrie, 21st Security Forces Squadron -- were creative and put a lot of details into the events to make them seem real, Mr. Edwards said. They started planning the first week in July. Sergeant Salazar's team painted up victims to look like they had open wounds, broken bones and terrible bruises. Sergeant Guthrie coordinated with the Colorado Springs SWAT team. And Sergeant Cockrell coordinated all of the medical response scenarios.

Areas identified that require strenthening include the security forces squadron's augmentee program, to ensure that all personnel pulled in to assist SFS are properly trained. There also will be a recommendation to Colonel Whiting to improve how cordons are set up to ensure better coordination between responders.

Strengths in this exercise were the response to the active shooter and hostage events. Responders are improving to those types of emergencies, Mr. Edwards said. There also was a marked improvement in communication from the incident commander to the wing commander.

"And, I'm always impressed with the response time of our emergency responders," Mr. Edwards said. "They are very quick to arrive on scene -- we are never standing there waiting for them."

 

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