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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 18, 1978)
Tornado’ tests Guard By H. DAVID WHITE tornado swept through Yegua ate Park, on the southwest inlet of ke Somerville, at 11:45 Saturday lling ten people and injuring six :rs. ot really. But for about 50 Texas M students in the Texas State ard it did happen. And they nd that because of a lack of uipment they were somewhat jrepared for the emergency. 'he Texas State Guard, which in event of mobilization of the Na nai Guard would assume that or- lizations’ responsibility, held its mal spring exercise for the 203rd litary Police Battalion. This bat on is made up of three com- tiies: A Company from ntsville, B Company from nham, and my unit, C Company nmanded by Lt. Joel White, of an. These three companies, with tal strength of 59 enlisted per- t setstlf is and 18 officers, assembled Sat- special lay, at the Brenham National rd Armory. All three companies spent their last two meetings Jv. Tils paring for this search and rescue !* e jump. J-only. y sixties ds pun! i with s d adds ■ guitar, and rave Britain’ ou have y typical ^’ery ear- have a] usly ban ulation. Ve sat in the armory hearing we don®, at 11:45 a.m., a tornado and vy rains swept through the ue State Park area. The briefing :er explained that the tornado hed down in an area of the park re three trailers, with 15 to 20 pants were located. In addition, n votelii th otl rock How tie )le. Tie withlj [ht plane with six occupants was hose oil He sets; ■w York, ■ge of nit words I yllable ly tights with two-i ols lendousl p up ® eitemeot die istenedf eved to have crashed at the e place. The last message heard d yelnj n it was a distress call to Easter- imageit id tower. arrd’hii he whole exercise was co il ofEhi inated with the Brenham police. Department of Public Safety, Washington County Sheriff's lartment, a local hospital, the department and two local ambu- e companies. k drove out to the park and u! Cooli in setting up a command post This was a small camping tent, t p U lst ch had been rented for the occa- uitarwos > because the unit does not get amid tit ! u ?b funds from the state to buy hough h ipment. inpressi': ^ nce the CP was set up, the units divided into two search >ups: Sierra One and Sierra Two. as assigned to Sierra One. We red in a straight line, with a 10- cord eve 1 interval between each person, ist rbckfi 1 the CP toward a wooded area, we reached dense underbrush, lines closed in and a big gap de- iped between the two search ies. The groups were halted and make ye Attempt to correct the interval marching along the shore toward the east. I took the lead in our col umn of eight people and after about five minutes of marching I spotted red in the grass ahead — we had found the victims. The victims, also state guardsmen, had been pre-picked. They were lying scattered over about a 100-foot area, much as would happen in an actual disaster. A quick look at the victims, who had paper tags telling what was wrong with them, indicated that six were already dead and three were injured. Of the injured, one had a broken leg, another had a head wound and the third had a mangled hand and was in shock. I asked my self how we could treat such injuries without equipment. A voice came over the small field radio we were carrying, compli ments of the National Guard. Sierra “I spotted red in the grass ahead — tve had found the victims” Two, the other search team, had found more victims east of us. They called in a long list of injuries: “Two victims with internal injuries, three fractures and one person in shock.” A request for first aid supplies would have been useless since the unit does not have funds for equip ment, despite the fact that adminis tration of first aid in a disaster situa tion is one of the primary functions of the State Guard. We asked that stretchers be brought forward immediately so that we could carry the victims back to the CP. But there were six in jured victims, four requiring im mediate attention, and only two stretchers. The equipment shortage was becoming more evident by the moment. But the decision was made to carry out the victims. We started to carry the victims along a small, dusty road, resting every 100 yards to catch our breath. After 500 yards, we came within sight of the CP. There we loaded the victims on a bus for the trip to the hospital. After the trip to the hospital we headed back to the armory where the critique of the exercise by a group of officers from headquarters in Austin was made. They were un aware of the acute equipment short age and their major criticism was the log of events was not kept by each company. They complimented the unit on its efficiency in accomplishing the mission. But they made no mention that the victims would have died because we didn’t have the equip ment to give them first aid, and from the time we lost wandering through the woods in the wrong di rection because of no maps or com passes. Most of the officers were im pressed with our actions and agreed with Lt. Col. Frederick West, one of the inspectors from Austin, that it was “one of the most realistic exer cises I’ve ever seen. It is something you might actually face and you’ve done a great job.” One of the enlisted persons on the exercise, a student from Texas A&M said, “It was one of the worst exercises ever. Sure we might have to face a situation like this but we ll be just as unprepared then as we were today, until Austin either supplies us with the necessary equipment or gives us the money to buy it ourselves.” Another student added, “It’s a shame that something as potentially useful as the guard is unable to do anything because of a lack of equip ment.” Armadillos A real Armadillo would never bite your ankle softly padded from head to tail, inside and out. A real Armadillo will not hide in your rloaet/liV -it'll keep right in step with you wherever you're off to, because,.. Areal Armadillo is made only ^ r ^ GENTLEMAN S QUARTER lOtgcUl 3705 E. 29th • 846-1706 Town & Country Center ilMJLl.EM.Qj Open til 8:00 Thurs. $32.00 THE BATTALION Page 7 TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1978 WHEN YOU DESERVE THE VERY BEST, COME TO THE BEST, AGGIES HOLIKS PACKAGE STORE 606 HOLLEMAN COLLEGE STATION, TX. 77840 693-3381 (WE DON’T LIKE ORANGE EITHER) That Place PROGRESSIVE PRECISION HAIRCUTTING 707 TEXAS 846-6933 made. Trails were cut through almost impassable terrain as the ch was resumed. ome of the guardsmen had to d on their hands and knees to through the thick forest. After ng only 60 yards into the under- sh we were lost and separated, began to think we were going wrong way. Without a map or a pass we could not be sure; as it led out we were going at an e away from our proposed line narch. ventually we reached a clearing the edge of the lake and began CB r We Want Your T-Shirt Business Too! 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