MF police in tactical training exercise

November 29, 2012, 9:00 pm by Alexandria Randolph

The Marble Falls Police Department will be participating in the Urban Shield Full-Scale Greater Preparedness Exercise on Saturday, Dec. 1.

Officers from the department will be traveling to Austin to participate in nine different Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) scenarios that will test the first responders’ abilities to react to crisis situations.

"We’ve been invited to participate due to our mass casualty training,” said Marble Falls Police Captain Glenn Hanson.

Urban Shield is a national exercise designed to assess the ability of first responders in a region to respond to and manage multiple, man-made disasters and other simultaneous emergencies. Each scenario will take place in a different location in Austin, including the Travis County Criminal Justice Center and Travis County Exposition Center.

"On a large scale it’s an opportunity to train and have observers give feedback,” Hanson said.

Regional emergency managers, law enforcement, regional SWAT, EMS, and related agencies from Travis, Williamson, Hays and Bastrop counties and the cities of Austin, Round Rock and Marble Falls will be participating in a multi-level training exercise that will take a total of 22 hours, beginning on Saturday at 6 a.m.

For more of this story, see Friday's Highlander