The Illinois National Guard’s 5th Chemical, Biological, Radiological/Nuclear and High Explosive Response Force Package is just one of a handful of teams across the country certified to respond to manmade and natural disasters.
The team received its CERFP certification in January at Camp Balding in Florida.
The training includes a simulated response to a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Speaking to Army Spc. Adam Fischman of the Illinois National Guard, Capt. Christian Pedersen, the officer-in-charge of the Illinois National Guard’s 5th CERFP, said, “CERFP tests the capabilities of search and extraction, decontamination, medical treatment, fatality, communications and leadership.”
According to the National Guard, a CERFP team’s mission is “to provide immediate response capability to the governor including: incident site search capability of damaged buildings, rescuing trapped casualties, providing decontamination, and performing medical triage and initial treatment to stabilize patients for transport to medical facilities.”
According to the 2007 National Guard budget, the year CERFP started, CERFP teams are one of the first teams to respond within a 6-72 hour period. One unique duty is to locate and extract victims from a contaminated environment. CERFP training includes exercises to find and extract victims.
In addition to the Illinois National Guard’s 5th CERFP, there are 16 other CERFP teams spread across the country. According to the National Guard, there is at least one CERFP team in each one of FEMA’s 10 regions.
“While some areas like CERFP are highly specified toward nuclear, bio-, chemical attacks, or accidents, most of the others serve multiple purposes,” said Nick Armstrong, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University. Armstrong noted other purposes for CERFP including disaster relief and security.
And it’s not only training. 1st Lt. Dutch Grove of the Illinois National Guard said communication between CERFP teams and those in control is also important.
“The Illinois National Guard works closely with state agencies like IEMA to ensure we have a good working relationship so that when we are called our transition into the response is seamless and efficient,” Grove said.
According to the National Guard, each CERFP team comprises four smaller teams: command and control, search and extraction, decontamination and medical.
The cost to train and keep CERFP teams active is less than $20 million a year, according to the National Guard budget.
Similarly, the National Guard is training and deploying guardsman for a newer program called the Homeland Response Force. Similar to CERFP teams, HRF teams will be among the first responders in the event of a terrorist attack. Ohio and Washington were the first two states to receive HRF teams. So CERFP teams and HRF teams do not overlap, Ohio and Washington’s CERFP teams became defunct, and Indiana and Alabama guardsman received certification to keep the number of teams at 17.
