Maria Romanick, Airport Operations and Maintenance manager, said about 60 volunteers helped stage the scene, with about 100 people in total engaged in the exercise.

Airport Manager Jennifer Eckman said responders and airport staff were not given a heads-up on the exercise scenario they were thrown into. She found herself learning about the pretend crash from actors posing as upset family members demanding answers, and then she dealt with spotty communication with her crew after landlines and cell phones went down. Inside the airport terminal, struggling to get the information she needed to do her job, she said she was able to work with the city’s public information office to let the public know the airport was closed.

“But beyond that, it was a challenge,” she said. “It was just a bit overwhelming.”

Friday’s scenario intentionally took down phones, messaging platforms and email with the goal of testing everyone’s skills with a relatively new, somewhat unfamiliar radio system.

Submitted Photo A Minot firefighter assists a volunteer with simulated injuries following a simulated crash during an emergency exercise at Minot International Airport Friday. Photo from the City of Minot.

“It just goes to show us that we need to be a bit more proactive in testing these,” Romanick said, “because I would hate to have an incident where we can’t communicate and be effective because we don’t know how to use our system.”

An in-depth debriefing is scheduled next week, but a quick after-event assessment uncovered areas that can be strengthened to better handle a real emergency.

“Those of us in emergency response positions, we know communication is always an area where you can improve,” Romanick said. “You always focus on it in your objectives – to try to get it set up so that it is successful. But we always know there’s going to be a gap.”

Romanick, a member of the planning committee that formulated the exercise, said the goal was to meet objectives in different focus areas, such as medical and security components. For the airport, objectives included getting an emergency operations center set up and closing the airport perimeter off within set time frames.

Romanick said she was pleased with the overall exercise.

“I was very happy. It took a lot of work, but yes, it, today, went really, really well,” she said.

“I feel our whole team learned a lot,” Eckman agreed.

Participating or assisting in the exercise were the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services, SimND, Delta/Unifi, Independence Inc., Minot Air Force Base Fire Department and Emergency Management, Ward County Emergency Management, Trinity Health and Ambulance, City of Minot Public Information Office, Transportation Safety Administration, First District Health Unit, Minot Central Dispatch, Salvation Army, Minot Fire Department and Rural Fire Department, Minot Police Department, City Transit and Ward County Coroner.

North Dakota’s commercial airports conduct major emergency exercises every three years, with smaller tabletop exercises at other times to keep skills sharp. Minot also has sent staff to exercises at other airports to serve on their evaluation teams.

Assisting with evaluations at the Minot exercise were the Fargo fire chief and representatives from airports in Devils Lake, Grand Forks and Dickinson.