The Royal Navy’s Caribbean task group has shown what it can do should disaster strike in a series of training exercises.
The Royal Navy say that a three-day intensive work out for RFA Wave Knight and HMS Medway, their sailors, soldiers and marines, plus helicopter was the first test of their combined response this summer.
“Working with the Montserrat disaster management agency, the task group landed a troop of commando engineers on the edge of the island’s volcanic zone.
The navy task force – comprising tanker/support ship RFA Wave Knight, patrol vessel HMS Medway and a Wildcat helicopter – stayed just off the coast throughout the exercise. Ashore, the troops practised methods of re-opening roads after a disaster.
The Wildcat was kept busy every day, flying water ashore for the troops and getting photos from around the island to support planning.”
Wildcat pilot Lieutenant Commander Eifion Parri was quoted as saying:
“The island is beautiful, of course, but as a training area it’s brilliant. We were able to photograph damaged areas, as part of the exercise, but also to get photos of important buildings in the north of the island. These will help us understand the situation more quickly if a hurricane does hit Montserrat.”
The task group carries specialist equipment, emergency supplies and 166 highly-trained men and women, including a dedicated humanitarian aid/disaster relief team of commando engineers from the Army’s 24 Commando, you can read more on this from the source here.
7 Ps
I visited Monserratt prior to the eruption when serving on Brum during a Dartmouth Training Squadron deployment for 4 mo this in the Windows…. They where the days! .Great run ashore. Even did the climb/hike up the mountain to see the volcano.
The place doesn’t have a lot of luck. Hurricanes, volcanoes, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of a zombie outbreak!
At least I got a T shirt!
I visited sometime after the eruption on the Campbeltown, we were sent into Plymouth to search the police station, the place had been wiped out by the pyroclastic flow, there’s a picture of me somewhere stood on top of a red phone box (the roof was just above the solidified mud layer!), everything was buried. Wouldn’t be supprised if Zombies live there now (the supermarket had been taken over by dogs, we had to hide in there when the volcano “burped” and sent a load of ash our way). They must be using it as a more realistic Distex site… Read more »
Bit more realistic than the current FOST site at Devonport.