JUNEAU, Alaska –
Dressed like 1950s science fiction aliens in head-to-toe hazardous material protective suits, the Virginia National Guard’s 34th Civil Support Team members Tech Sgt. Taylor Lincoln and Staff Sgt. Samantha Sanders slowly crept into an otherwise quiet building June 9 at AJ Dock on Juneau’s ocean shore.
The two Airmen were operating based on an intelligence report that foreign terrorists were planning to carry out a chemical attack in Alaska’s capital, and Coast Guard Sector Southeast marine science technicians corroborated the report, discovering a chemical lab at the port facility.
Most sane people, including a majority of military members, swiftly move away from weaponized chemicals, biological payloads and high-yield explosives, but Lincoln and Sanders went through the rigorous process of meticulously donning their Level A HAZMAT suits before carefully entering the makeshift lab.
Following a 716th Explosive Ordnance Disposal team that cleared the area for explosive devices, Lincoln and Sanders found a veritable forest of glass tubes signifying a lab assembled to churn out nerve agents capable of killing hundreds of victims in minutes. After the Airmen exited the building and called up their report, they doffed their HAZMAT suits while dozens of disembarking cruise ship passengers gawked at the unexpected spectacle.
The training scenario was part of Exercise ORCA 25, a full-scale all-hazards chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives joint and interagency training exercise testing and evaluating the operational capability of the whole-of-government emergency management system.
National Guard participants included 103rd Civil Support Team, Alaska National Guard; 9th Civil Support Team, California National Guard; 83rd Civil Support Team, Montana National Guard; 102nd Civil Support Team, Oregon National Guard; and 34th CST, Virginia National Guard.
Other military units included Coast Guard Sector Southeast and 716th EOD. Participating federal agencies included the FBI and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. State and local agencies included the Tlingit and Haida Emergency Operation Center, Juneau Police Department and Capital City Fire & Rescue.
Alaska Army National Guard Capt. Kyle Rehberg, 103rd CST operations officer and native of Hainesville, Illinois, said his unit planned and controlled the complex exercise that had scenarios in the Juneau capitol area in addition to AJ Dock.
“We are acting as the white cell operation, so we have complete situational awareness of everything that is going on down range,” Rehberg said. “We are actively monitoring when teams are going in, what their objectives are, what they are finding, what they report back up to the unified command, and we can help with issues with equipment or personnel.”
During past weapons of mass destruction exercises, the 103rd CST trained in other Alaska communities, but Rehberg said the capital provided rare and challenging training opportunities.
“What makes Juneau unique is it’s the state capital and it’s a heavy cruise ship destination with a lot of tourists in the summer,” Rehberg said. “So, we think about what would a potential WMD event look like with those two variables and about what kind of constraints are involved with cruise ships and state government buildings that we wouldn’t necessarily think about back home at Anchorage.”
During their entry, what CSTs call their encounters with WMD, Lincoln and Sanders had to quickly size up the situation by piecing together the discovery of documents detailing toxic chemical formulas, reading the labels of chemical vials, and interpreting the lab setup to determine what the rogue chemists intended to do.
“We found a bomb-making setup and a drone that is likely a dispersal device,” Lincoln, a Dixmont, Maine, native said. “We also found lab gear that was probably two steps away from possibly being a g-series agent setup.”
G-series agents include tabun, sarin, soman, and cyclosarin, all formulated by the Nazis before and during World War II. The 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack killed 14 and injured dozens, demonstrating the devastating effect of the WMD.
To protect themselves, Lincoln said the team wears a suit that offers protection superior to the standard military chemical suit due to deliberate, persistent exposure to hazardous agents.
“We use a Level A HAZMAT suit,” Lincoln said. “It’s a fully encapsulated suit, and we wear a self-contained breathing apparatus that allows us to breathe down range. With that suit, we are able to go into most chemical and biological environments.”
During the entry, the team had to peer through two layers of protection, their gas mask and their suit visor, and use thick protective gloves in their efforts to paint an accurate picture of the lab. Upstairs, another team found a simulated cesium source, a radioactive substance that could be used to make a dirty bomb designed to irradiate an area.
In order to safely and effectively operate under such real-world hazardous and trying conditions, CST members attend the Civil Support Skills Course at the U.S. Army’s Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Many have braved the Chemical Defense Training Facility where they were exposed to real chemical agents.
After gathering and transmitting photos of the lab and calling up several reports, the team exited the building and decontaminated their suits before carefully extracting themselves to safety and comfort.
Sanders said she relished the tough Alaska training.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Sanders, a native of Tucson, Arizona, said. “We have gorgeous scenery, and you can’t complain about that, but we get to come together and work with other teams. We’re East Coast, so we work the teams there, but we don’t often see the teams that are here. It’s nice to branch out, make new connections, and see how other teams perform the job we do.”