TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY
Texas Engineering Extension Service
NATIONAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE & RESCUE TRAINING CENTER
Background
The National Emergency Response & Rescue Training
Center (NERRTC) was established by the Texas
Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) at Texas A&M
University in the aftermath of the 1995 bombing of the
Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Since then,
significant resources have been invested in its existing
infrastructure by the State of Texas and TEEX.
The Conference Report for the 1999 Department of Justice
(DOJ) Appropriations Act urged DOJ to use NERRTC at
Texas A&M as a national training center to
prepare Federal, State, and local officials,
including law enforcement, firefighters,
emergency medical personnel, and other key
agencies such as public works and emergency
management agencies, to prepare for and respond
to chemical, biological, or other terrorist acts.
In June 1998, TEEX/NERRTC became a member of the
National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC), an
integral part of the Office of Justice Program's State and
Local First Responder Training Program, consistent with
guidance in the report accompanying the 1998
Appropriation Act. The Consortium was established by
DOJ's Office of Justice Programs/Office for Domestic
Preparedness (OJP/ODP) to provide expertise and training
to the state and local emergency response community. It
is a partnership of several nationally recognized public
universities, the Justice Department, and the Department
of Energy that brings together into a singular, coordinated,
and integrated training program the various entities
receiving funding under OJP/ODP's domestic prepared-ness initiative.
NERRTC, with a physical complex valued at over $125
million, integrates the well-established emergency
response training programs and facilities of TEEX into a
one-stop shop for domestic preparedness. Its mission is to
prepare federal, state and local officials, including
emergency first responders, to effectively respond to acts
of terrorism caused by weapons of mass destruction
(WMD). Some of the training courses are provided at
TEEX's state-of-the-art facilities which include a 120 acre
emergency operation training area, a mock city, a virtual
reality training facility, an explosives area, a weapons
range, assault houses, and water and wastewater training
areas. Other training courses and the technical assistance
are provided on-site in the state or in the local jurisdiction.
Under a cooperative agreement with OJP/ODP, TEEX
contributes to ODP's First Responder Training Program
through the development and delivery of Responder
Training Programs. TEEX has developed and delivers
emergency response training to local government officials,
senior emergency response agency officials, public works
agencies, and emergency medical services agencies and
has developed several Internet-based, self-study courses
Course Offerings
Unless otherwise noted, the following courses are
delivered on-site in the local jurisdiction at a facility
provided by the requesting agency and are tailored to the
needs of the jurisdiction.
Senior Officials Workshop
This 1-day course for senior-level elected and
appointed officials is designed as an introduction to
strategic and operational planning regarding weapons
of mass destruction (WMD) terrorism incidents.
Participants will learn how to assess potential targets
within their communities and protective actions that
can be taken. The course will focus on how to
develop an integrated response that involves local,
state, and federal resources and how to develop an
awareness for special financial and legal
considerations, and media impacts that a WMD
incident may involve.
Mayor's Executive Seminar
This 1-day seminar, designed for newly elected
mayors, provides an introduction to the strategic and
operational issues related to planning for a possible
weapons of mass destruction terrorist incident. The
seminar will engage the mayors in an interactive
discussion, utilizing multi-media vignettes as well as
nationally acclaimed speakers to stimulate the
discussion. Course locations vary and are announced
with the course.
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Threat and
Risk Assessment
This 3-day course is designed to prepare city and
county leaders and agency administrators to conduct
a proactive and comprehensive assessment of their
vulnerability to a WMD terrorism incident. It will
also assist them in evaluating their Emergency
Operations Plan and terrorism annex, developing a
needs assessment, and validating requirements for
protection against and reaction to WMD terrorism.
Scenarios that are tailored to the jurisdiction, based on
a self-assessment completed by participants prior to
the course, will be assessed during the class. The
target audience includes city and county elected
officials and planners and administrators from fire
service, law enforcement, emergency medical
services, and emergency management.
Emergency Medical Service Operations
and Planning for Weapons of Mass
Destruction
This 5-day course will equip emergency medical
service (EMS) personnel, health care providers, and
physicians with the skills needed to ensure proper
patient triage and treatment in the event of exposure to
weapons of mass destruction. Classroom material will
be reinforced with actual hands-on treatment of
patients in a WMD scenario. First responders will use
their training to demonstrate proper techniques for
detection and monitoring, triage, mass
decontamination, treatment and stabilization. In
addition, participants will receive training on the
proper techniques for self-protection and limiting
cross contamination.
Public Works: Planning for and
Responding to a Terrorism/Weapons of
Mass Destruction Incident
This 3-day course focuses on enhancing the
capabilities of public works leadership, in
coordination with local and state emergency response
personnel, to plan for, respond to, and manage a
weapons of mass destruction terrorism incident. The
course presents the fundamental skills, knowledge,
and attitudes that will be needed by public works
managers and supervisors when they are called upon
to respond to or develop a plan to prevent or mitigate
a WMD incident, including chemical and biological
agents, nuclear/radiological weapons and explosive
devices. In order to foster a proper level of
multidisciplinary understanding, participants from the
fire service, HazMat team, emergency medical, law
enforcement, and public health disciplines are invited
to the course.
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Incident
Management/Unified Command
This 4-day course for incident and emergency
management coordinators, and emergency operations
center staff, focuses on the special challenges faced by
senior-level incident management personnel in dealing
with a mass casualty terrorism incident. The course is
designed to prepare key personnel to effectively
coordinate emergency response efforts to a WMD
terrorism incident, including the ability to integrate
communications and planning among fire, rescue,
EMS, law enforcement, emergency management,
public officials, and state and federal agencies. It
combines classroom lecture and scenario-based team
exercises with simulations, videos, and case histories.
This course is delivered at NERRTC at Texas A&M
in College Station, Texas.
Internet-Based Course Offerings
The following internet-based courses can be accessed via
the TEEX Web Campus at:
http://www.teexweb.tamu.edu/campus.
Terrorism Awareness for Emergency First
Responders
This awareness-level course addresses basic concepts
of terrorism and the terrorist threat. The course
recognizes key on-scene indicators of a suspicious
event as well as appropriate self-protective measures.
The course also covers security issues unique to
terrorist events, appropriate notifications and the
command and control structure associated with crime
scene activities. The course is designed for fire
service, emergency management, EMS, law
enforcement, HazMat, public works, disaster
response, emergency communications, public health,
armed forces/national guard personnel. The course is
self-paced and should take approximately 4 hours to
complete.
Emergency Medical Services
This course addresses incident management,
responder considerations, and medical response at a
WMD incident. The focus of the course is on the
treatment of patients at mass casualty sites and
making EMS and other medical personnel aware of
unique considerations associated with a terrorist event.
Successful completion of this course will equip
responders with a general understanding of the
specific issues involved in responding to terrorist
incidents and provide the background knowledge
needed to participate in technician-level courses for
WMD. The target audience is designed for EMS and
public health personnel as well as doctors and nurses.
Pubic Works: Weapons of Mass Destruc-tion Terrorism - Basic Concepts
This course provides a unique opportunity for public
works employees to acquire the knowledge, skills, and
attitudes necessary to help them protect public safety
and infrastructure from the threat of a WMD terrorism
incident. The course is designed for personnel in
Public Works Departments at the director, assistant
director, division manager, and superintendent levels.
Technical Assistance
ODP-sponsored technical assistance is provided to states
and local jurisdictions by TEEX to help them conduct the
threat and needs assessments related to WMD terrorism.
The assistance is provided through a series of training
workshops for multidisciplinary teams who work together
to develop the expertise to conduct thorough threat,
vulnerability, public health, risk, capabilities and needs
assessments to analyze the results, and to use this
information to develop a jurisdictional or statewide
domestic preparedness strategy.
The workshops are designed to help the state or
jurisdiction to:
Identify stakeholders and participants early in process
Focus on acquiring "ownership" and input from
participants
Identify threats and resources
Apply a multidimensional (multiple assessments) and
a multidisciplinary (fire, law enforcement, health,
public works, etc) approach
Identify needs and solutions
Identify strengths and vulnerabilities and how to
enhance or mitigate
Applies knowledge and skills in scenario/simulation
building
Eligibility to Attend Training
Representatives from local and state emergency response
agencies, see course description for more information.
Costs to the Participants
The training and course materials are provided at no cost
to the state or local organization or responder. The cost of
travel, meals, and lodging are also provided for those
attending a course held at the TEEX training facility,
To Schedule Training
All requests for ODP-sponsored training are made through
the Domestic Preparedness Training Point of Contact
(POC) in the State Administrative Agency designated by
the Governor to administer the State Domestic
Preparedness Equipment Grant Program and to develop
the state's risk assessment and statewide domestic
preparedness strategy. The list of POC's is available on
ODP's webpage at: