Joint training exercises take place in Northern Michigan

PETOSKEY — Anyone driving past the Emmet County Fairgrounds on Tuesday or Wednesday probably saw military vehicles and dozens of Michigan National Guard members.

Their presence, along with many other local and state security and law enforcement agencies, were in town conducting joint training exercises. Training simulations were taking place in Emmet, Cheboygan and Mackinac counties during the two days.

Along with the National Guard and county entities, Michigan State Police, United States Coast Guard, the Petoskey Department of Public Safety, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, local fire departments and EMS and more were involved in the exercises.

Each county activated their emergency operations center (EOC) for the training.

“We are really using the exercise to train and work through the process of opening the EOC and getting the resource requests out, figuring out how we need to operate for both our primary and our secondary people who are in the emergency operation center,” said Emmet County Emergency Management Coordinator Matthew Blythe.

Participants in the EOC monitored the training via drone and discussed ways they would communicate with the community, such as looping in the public schools or North Central Michigan College in an emergency situation where they needed to open shelters.

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Blythe noted the importance of practicing the coordination between so many departments before an actual emergency.

“We see way too many times the response because of an incident,” he said. “So, on a blue sky day like this the ability to coordinate with everybody, get them in the seats talking about what’s happening within the community and within the first response community, specifically, so we’re all talking on the same page, we all understand what needs to happen. It is a significant piece of planning preparedness, and that’s one of the reasons we’re operating with the Guard, Cost Guard and all the other agencies today.”

In Emmet County, training took place at the fairgrounds and at the water treatment plant by Magnus Park in Petoskey.

At the water treatment plant, the training exercise was focused on critical infrastructure protection.

More: National Guard, law enforcement stage joint training in Petoskey

In the fairgrounds scenario, the National Guard was responding to a mock protest, staged with volunteers, that turns violent. The volunteers pelted the National Guard with projectiles — little plastic balls like those found in ball pits — and pushed against their riot shields, planted incendiary devices and created medical emergency situations for the National Guard to respond to.

Volunteer Michele Cole said she was in a play with Blythe and was invited to take part in the training exercise as an actor.

“It was very fun to yell,” she said. “It’s kind of like therapy to just get to yell at people about nothing.”

Cole added that seeing the coordination between the different agencies was “wonderful.”

“I think it’s wonderful that they coordinate, because that’s a very difficult thing to do across departmental lines,” she said. "I’m very grateful for their service.”

— Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Joint training exercises take place in Northern Michigan