NMI response team completes hazmat training

Twenty-five members of the CNMI’s Emergency Response Team for Hazmat completed yesterday a five-day training on hazardous materials at Palms Resort Saipan.

Three officials from the All Hazard Management Professionals (AMPRO) conducted the training. The Emergency Management Office under director Mark Pangelinan sponsored the event.

The members of Emergency Response Team for Hazmat are from the police, fire, emergency management services, Department of Public Works, Commonwealth Utilities Corp., and Division of Environmental Quality.

AMPRO president and lead instructor John Scott told Saipan Tribune that they spent the first four days of the training in classrooms; the last day consisted of practicing all the skills they learned in the field.

“The skills they are learning include things like setting up control zones, decontamination station setup and procedures, how to work as a team for emergency recovery of victims, stopping leaks and dealing with hazardous material spills, and how to use the specialized equipment,” Scott said.

He said it is good that the CNMI’s Emergency Response Team for Hazmat is composed of several agencies.

“That’s the way we want to do on all hazard response: To have representatives from all the agencies so we can spread out both the skills and give us some depth on the team so it is not handled by just one agency like the fire department,” he said.

Scott said it’s really all about learning different skills and different parts of a response.

Citing a scenario of a traffic accident dealing with flammable chemical and toxic materials, which they did yesterday afternoon, Scott said the team learned how to work together, organized their work space, used the equipment, and did procedural things like decontamination.

The participants received the Office of Domestic Preparedness or Homeland Security certification and were certified as Occupational Safety and Health Administration hazmat technicians. In addition, all firemen received pre-board certification.

“So everyone will get at least two certificates and the firemen will get three,” Scott said.

He said the trainees are very excellent.

“I feel that we did a good job as instructors and they’ve done their part as students,” the lead instructor said.

Assistant instructor J.D. Robinson said the training went very well.

“They just conducted an hour and a half test which we graded and it seems that everybody did very well. The actual exercise went very well,” Robinson said.

AMPRO safety manager Terry Badley also helped in the training.