The South Carolina National Guard, along with state and county emergency management agencies are in the middle of a disaster readiness exercise called “Vigilant Guard.”
The training exercises stretch from the upstate to the coast. Saturday, the bridge unit performed their mission at the “Carroll a. Campbell Marine Complex” in Georgetown.
The scenario was how county officials and the National Guard would respond if there was a category four hurricane that made landfall. The bridge unit’s job was to get an emergency vehicle to a secluded island.
“This is our first time actually building it on swift water, on the river. So we are used to building on lakes, you know sometimes lakes are moving but sometimes lakes aren’t,” said Bridge commander Dewey Rowland.
Rowland said the exercise allowed his unit to get hands on experience. He said his personal mission is to make sure everything runs smoothly on the water.
“If we have flooding or a big hurricane like Hurricane Katrina, we can always deploy a bridge you know either ferry people, ferry equipment,” said Rowland.
Sergeant first class James Cook was there when thousands of people were displaced and stranded due to Hurricane Katrina. He said it was an ideal situation for a bridge unit to assist.
“Just being able to reach the locals, because these boats can operate in 2 foot of water, very shallow water so we could have actually went around to the residents and been able to get them out in a more timely manner,” said Cook.
Rowland said it’s important to train, so if a disaster strikes again, they’ll be ready.
“Any training we can get out on this water be able to open a bridge up, drive the boats, hands on, any training is valuable training to a National Guard member,” said Rowland.
The National Guard will be performing a number of different drills for “Vigilant Guard” through March 12th.