Government
officials from Salina and Saline County received an overview of the Great
Plains Joint Training Center and its Crisis City venue during a briefing by
the Kansas Adjutant General's Department Wed. May 6 in Salina. The GPJTC is
a joint civilian/military training facility. The meeting at Eckert Hall,
Kansas Regional Training Institute, was hosted by Brig. Gen. Norman Steen,
director of the Great Plains Joint Training Center.
Steen
discussed the tremendous training capacity and boost in economic benefits
the GPJTC provides to the city of Salina and surrounding region. A number
of exercises hosted there throughout the year bring in people from around
the country, and more are planned in the future. In addition, the facility
has brought new jobs to Salina. Representatives from the Salina Airport
Authority, Kansas State University and the city and county attended.
The GPJTC
provides a location where military and emergency responders can train in a
realistic environment either separately or jointly to prepare for real-life
disaster response. The site includes the Smoky Hill Weapons Range and also
Crisis City, designed for the military and first responders to exercise
their plans when responding to a disaster in a local community.
Crisis City currently has a rail disaster venue which
includes rail cars, tracks and services donated by Union Pacific,
Burlington Northern Santa Fe, RJ Corman, Mid America Cars Inc., OxyChem,
Simplot, Energy Transportation Incorporated and Transcaer. Other
venues planned or under construction include a rubble pile for search and
rescue training; an "urban terrain" area which will be ideally
suited for training in house-to-house searches, hostage situations and
other crisis situations; hazmat training; an agriculture training venue,
and pipeline venue.
