St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Senior Deputy First Class Clay Safford, Deputy First Class Milton Pesante and Deputy First Class Shawn Moses recently completed Homeland Security training from Sept. 29 through Oct. 4, at the Center for Domestic Preparedness located in Anniston, Ala.
The deputies attended the 40 hours of Weapons of Mass Destruction
Emergency Responder Hazardous Materials Technician Training which provides the responder with a combination of lectures, hands-on practical exercises and training that meets OSHA requirements for technician level training. The participants are provided hands-on training through practical exercises and must pass written evaluations. The CDP is operated by the United States Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and is the only federally-chartered WMD training facility in the nation. The CDP provides federally-funded, interdisciplinary training for emergency responders from across the United States and U.S. Territories, for 10 responder disciplines: Emergency Management, Emergency Medical Service, Fire Service, Governmental Administrative, Hazardous Materials, Healthcare, Law Enforcement, Public Health, Public Safety Communications and Public Works. Health care and public health training is conducted at the CDP’s Noble Training Facility, the nation’s only hospital facility dedicated to training hospital and health care professionals in disaster preparedness and response.
Many training courses culminate at the CDP’s Chemical, ordnance, biological and radiological training facility, the nation’s only facility featuring civilian training exercises in a true toxic environment, using chemical agents. The advanced hands-on training enables responders to effectively prevent, respond to and recover from real-world incidents involving acts of terrorism and other hazardous materials.
