Matt Boerwinkle, chief information officer for the Illinois State Police, said his team learned the importance of communication at NIU’s multi-jurisdictional emergency response training exercise Friday.
“Keeping our practice up with radio communications when we have multiple agencies sharing a channel. It’s important to have precedence over who has communications and then control of the communication at critical times, and then as resources are coming in, those resources are put on to alternate channels or cellular traffic.”
During the event, participants were trained for a situation involving an improvised explosive device in the NIU Convocation Center. NIU Police Chief Tom Phillips said reality-based situations are the best way to train people.
“You really have to step back and take a breath and think clearly about what’s going on because with everyone’s attempt to respond and help can get lost and get jumbled in the chaos of such an incident.”
NIU Police Chief Tom Phillips felt the one of the biggest objectives of this event was identifying weaknesses in communication.
“I think that we’ve identified where we need to improve and now the plan is to move forward and pull out those things we’ve identified and make plans to how we can improve them.”
More than 250 people took part in the event, including NIU President Doug Baker.
“Each emergency situation is different, but the fact that you practice your roles and people know who’s doing what really helps you get ready for all kinds of challenges you may face.”