 A truck explodes. Coming up. There was a terrorist attack. We take you inside an abandoned arena for a rare look at how multiple agencies would respond in the worst of the worst situations. It's one of those things that's scary to people. A drill so realistic. This exercise of this size is not normally seen in the garden. It challenged everyone involved. I think it was one of our better exercises that we've done. We're going Inside Sentinel Response 18. Next on Inside Look. Cal OES Logo. Inside Look. OESNews.com Hi, I'm Brian May. Thanks for joining us. And welcome to the former home of the Sacramento Kings. This is Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento. The locals here refer to it still as Arco Arena. This building just wrapping up a very important exercise. It was Sentinel Response 18, a full scale exercise that involved an earthquake and a dirty bomb. Countdown to entry. The one's coming down. We're going to go ahead and push forward for a look at that. We started off with an earthquake that affected Northern California. Rubble? Rubble. As the scenario plays out, all the resources are stretched thin. I had a place during a church. I wanted to give you an update on what we found so far. In the midst of this, the way the scenario lays out is that there was a terrorist attack right here at one of our staging locations where a lot of civilians were. In one of the most realistic exercises in state history, Sentinel Response 18, coordinated by Cal OES, brought together the California National Guard, Homeland Response Force, FEMA, Urban Search and Rescue Teams, the Department of Energy, the FBI, and local fire, rescue, and law enforcement mutual aid. Nico King served as one of the incident commanders. We're used to being activated, but we're not used to coming together and doing a full scale exercise like this, but it raises the bar in our confidence that we can manage a complex incident. This drill as realistic as it could possibly be. So much so, the truck that carried the dirty bomb inside the arena is actually blown up before the exercise started and then placed inside the arena. The effect enhanced with smoke from a fog machine and radioactive containers set close by. It's one of those things that's scary to people. There's a lot of movies about what happens with radiation and bombs going off, but as long as you educate people on if something like this was to happen, that your local responders are prepared to make rescues, save people, and mitigate any situation. You're seeing multiple levels of radiation that the Urban Search and Rescue Teams are encountering. They're having to determine radiation levels, their state times, victim survivability, how they're going to get victims out and the time they have. This exercise was specifically designed to test every agency here. Their motto, you practice like you fight, you fight like you practice. When you think about emergency response at the local response level, we can handle everyday 911 calls. But when you have something beyond the scope of what you can normally handle every day, you have to call for resources and that's what Cal OES is for us, for the state. We're able to make that phone call to our region and then from the region they give us additional resources. Among those additional resources, 20 helicopters and close to 300 members of the California National Guard. This exercise of this size is not normally seen in the Guard. We're the nervous system to take in information and pass it out to the world. Master Sergeant Brian Christman coordinated air operations for the Guard. We're able to practice with our firefighter brother that we see every day we never get to work with so that when something real happens there's no thinking, no questions. Communications, organization, all of it is already in place because we've done it in a practice situation. I think it was one of our better exercises that we've done. It was a step forward for us where we incorporated not only our own urban search and rescue teams from around the state, but also incorporated the National Guard who are truly our partners because in a real world emergency they're going to be side by side with us on the line. The most important piece of it is we're exchanging the phone numbers and shaking hands with that relationship and we just went through an incredible 20 hours together. We've experienced something together and that just helps for the next instance that we're going to go to together. Well this entire drill was as realistic as possible and that includes for the volunteers who were here playing the role of victims, people who were injured when the bomb exploded. For more on that, here's Monica Vargas. Making Sentinel Response 2018 as realistic as possible is a key part of this training exercise and that includes special effects. We have open lacerations on the legs. We have soot marks. We have burns. We have compound fractures. We have open pneumothorixes which is really just a fancy little word for a hole in the chest. This is in Hollywood. This is a drill. The first responders are real. The scenario could potentially happen in the injuries. Well those are fake and the victims are volunteers. The special effects used to recreate injuries is known as moulage and is widely used in disaster response training across the country. Incorporating moulage into Sentinel Response was purposely designed to bring the exercise to life and sharpen response skills. Exactly like you'd have on an exercise that had an explosion in place or a mass casualty. The realism of the scene and the injuries is instrumental when training for real world events. The first responders assessed and treated victims and the realism lets responders react in the way they would in real life. When you go to exercises where that realism isn't there it's just not good training. The more realistic the exercise elements the better the training and moulage is a big player behind the scenes to make it all happen. Fortunately the broken bones and burns behind me are not real but it could happen and this training exercise is for a purpose. Do your part to be prepared for the next disaster. For Cal OES I'm Monica Vargas. Thanks Monica and the good news about Sentinel Response 18 is that all of the agencies who came together for this drill will take what they learned and apply them in a drill that will take place in Southern California later on this year. For all of us at Cal OES, I'm Brian May. Thanks for watching. Visit our online newsroom at oesnews.com to learn more about this program and get the latest news and information from our team. Don't miss our next video on your Facebook timeline like our page and you'll get the latest posts as they happen. 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