Practising for the Real Thing

Part of my duties include being part off the Council's team that responds to civil emergencies.  Thankfully, these are very rare and so far I have mainly been involved in practicing for the possibility of an emergency like flooding, or most recently a solar flare that knocked out electricity across the region.

Today, I was at a planning meeting for an exercise to test responses to an emergency affecting a chemical plant in our area.  It would involve all of the blue light services as well as other first responders.  A real multi-agency challenge.  While I'm hopeful I will never need to put what I learn into practice, these exercises help develop better understanding of the roles of each agency.  I now realise, having been on a team planning such an event how they manage to make the practise play so realistic.

Anyway, as I left the meeting I noticed this firefighter, practising the removal of an injured person from height at the adjoining fire station.  It seemed an appropriate image to share with the words I've written.