Canaan Valley Resort Ski Area was the sight of a long-planned training event on Sunday October 1.
Canaan Valley Volunteer Fire Department (CVVFD) coordinated the event which was focused on securing, coordinating, and effectively using resources from Tucker County and across the state. Canaan Valley is one of the West Virginia’s top travel destinations and on weekends and holidays the local population can swell to tens of thousands. With a full-time resident population of under 1000 people, this makes training with outside resources critical.
Fire departments in Tucker County have all identified training scenarios that would require communication, coordination, and resources from outside the county. For the CVVFD, its training scenario involves the malfunction of one of the lifts at the two local ski areas. This kind of incident, although extremely rare, would result in a large number of people needing assistance with evacuating the lift, assistance down the mountain, and possibly transportation to hospitals.
Sandy Green, chief of the CVVFD, expressed his gratitude for the support of Canaan Valley Resort, US Hotels, West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, and the Division of Homeland Security for their contributions to planning and hosting the event. Green was also appreciative of the first responders and ski patrol volunteers who turned out to participate in the exercise from all over the region. Over 46 first responders and 69 ski industry personnel and volunteers honed their skills during the exercise. In addition 26 community volunteers spent their morning acting as injured patients, complete with make-up! As Green noted, “this kind of training exercise gives us the opportunity to train and learn with our counterparts from other organizations—those whose assistance we count on in a real-world emergency.”
Sunday’s training scenario involved both a fire and lift failure and provided many training opportunities. While the chances are remote – statistically, riding a lift is safer than commercial air travel and safer than driving your car – CVVFD and its partners plan for all kinds of possible emergencies.
The exercise officially began at 9:56am with the first “emergency” call and by 11:15am all of the volunteer “patients” had been transported off the mountain and were receiving medical assistance. All the participating organizations noted the great teamwork shown on the slope and everyone was pleased with the speed of the evacuation.
Green was grateful for the resources dedicated to the event and the time and energy of organizers, first responders, and all of the volunteers. “We’re more prepared for any kind of emergency today because of this event and we’ve also identified some new training ideas for future events,” says Green. “We’re thankful for everyone who made this training exercise possible.”
