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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 27, 2015)
V The Battalion I 4.27.15 Cubby Hole Texas. SELF storage 1821 E. 29th St. 979-779-6999 www.cubbyholeusa.com • Moving & Storage Supplies • 24 Hour Recorded Video • On Site Manager • Computerized Access Gates FREE Use of Truck to Move Into Your Cubby Hole! STUDENTS OR STAFF RENT BEFORE END OF FINALS... PAY NO DEPOSIT (*10) & GET FREE LOCK ( s 8.99) ID & COPY OF THIS AD REQUIRED AG OWNED AND OPERATED. American Liberalism Must be Destroyed! Insights from Professor Alexander Dugin, Kremlin Insider and Informal Adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin April 29, 2015 via the internet in Room 301 of Rudder Tower 1:30 p.m. Advertisement Paid (or by Preston Wiginton BATT The Independent Student Voice of Texas A&M since 1893 Mark Dore, Editor in Chief Aimee Breaux, Managing Editor Katie Canales, Life & Arts Editor Jennifer Reiley, Asst. Managing Editor Carter Karels, Sports Editor Lindsey Gawlik, News Editor Shelby Knowles, Photo Editor Samantha King, Asst. News Editor Allison Bradshaw, Asst. Photo Editor Katy Stapp, Asst. News Editor Meredith Collier, Page Designer John Rangel, SciTech Editor Claire Shepherd, Page Designer THE BATTALION is published daily, Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and Tuesday and Thursday during the summer session (except University holidays and exam periods) at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. Offices are in Suite L400 of the Memorial Student Center. News: The Battalion news department is managed by students at Texas A&M University in Student Media, a unit of the Division of Student Affairs. Newsroom phone: 979-845-3315; E-mail: editor@thebatt.com; website: http://www.thebatt.com. Advertising: Publication of advertising does not imply sponsorship or endorsement by The Battalion. For campus, local, and national display advertising, call 979-845-2687. For classified advertising, call 979-845- 0569. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Email: battads@thebatt.com. Subscriptions: A part of the University Advancement Fee entitles each Texas A&M student to pick up a single copy of The Battalion. First copy free, additional copies $1. NEWS I Disaster City simulates potential disaster situations to train first responders. Tanner Garza — THE BATTALION DISASTER CITY CONTINUED manager William Welch said any disaster is a local disaster. “If Snook had a disaster and they called for additional support and that support was Texas Task Force 1 or Forest Service or any of these entities, they would come in and be below the local jurisdiction,” Welch said. “Every disaster is always local. That local jurisdiction may employ an incident management team to help them mitigate the disaster.” Welch said most local jurisdictions could remain inde pendently effective for approximately 12 hours, after which Texas Task Force 1 or other specialized disaster response forces will move in as well. “At the second operational cycle, task force has arrived and gotten set up, bringing specialized tools and skill sets that they have to operate in these environments,” Welch said. Saunders said this exercise has been in the works for three years now, with three different teams participating in similar exercises. He said the exercises are important because the Federal Emergency Management Agency task force teams looks at all personnel to operate in these sorts of environ ments. “We want to be able to prove to ourselves that we can do that,” Saunders said. “And then also if there are any gaps we see from the exercise then we can address those gaps in additional training.” Beyond simply completing the exercises, Saunders said communication is key to developing the most efficient re sponse effort possible. “When we’re on scene, very rarely do we operate by our selves,” Saunders said. “Any really large incident is going to have numerous different agencies and usually the failure points are not the skill level of the responders, the failure points are a breakdown in communication. So what this ex ercise is all about is the human interaction and making sure that we’re communicating with everyone correctly.” In addition to training human personnel, Disaster City, in collaboration with the Texas A&M veterinary medicine program, is also on the forefront of developing techniques for search-and-rescue dogs as well as how to deal with any animals found in the wreckage. Angela Clendenin, communications director in the Col lege of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, said the program developed in 2010 in response to Hurricane Rita. Initially focused on sheltering, the vet med program reached out to Texas Task Force 1 to gauge the health and operations of their rescue dogs. “We have a graduate student who now works full time with a vet that designed a decontamination unit,” Clendenin said. “Other states are asking for the blueprints and things like that because they don’t have anything like it.” Less than a year after Hurricane Rita, the fires in Bastrop further spurred development of the training program. “When you look at this environment that the dogs are working in now, imagine that it was covered in hot burning embers and ash,” Clendenin said. “They had booties for their dogs but the dogs didn’t like them, and they were kind of low so the dogs were tearing them off. We actually did pre opera tional exams on them. We developed a new booting system that kind of came up higher so they couldn’t get them off as easy, and then we did hydration checks throughout the day and then their post-operational period exam.” Clendenin said, according to the Task Force, their search- and-rescue dogs are subjected to grueling environments and could remain operational for two to three days before need ing to be rotated out. After running the pre-operational exams, the vet med program was able to increase the operational effectiveness of these dogs to four to six days — nearly double the original time in the field. “This lets Task Force do their job more quickly, more efficiently and they find more bodies and save more lives,” Clendenin said. Overall, Saunders said everything going on at Disaster City applies to every sort of disaster situation imaginable. “We basically create a world and a storyline for the exer cise scenario, but last year’s was based off a gas line explosion, and the gas line explosion did all this damage with the same kind of contamination and all the rest of the stuff,” Saunders said. “It’s not the story, it’s what you ericl up with.” Many universities talk about the excellence of their faculty and staff. . . . rja TEXAS A&M Jut l ' N I V E R S I T Y At Texas A&M, our best wear it with pride! Our Distinguished Acheivement Award winners proudly wear a distinctive watch symbolizing that they have achieved Texas A&M’s highest level of recognition. Join us to celebrate their commitment, performance and positive impact on students, and the future of Texas and the world. Distinguished Achievement Awards Ceremony Monday, April 27, 2015 - 1:30 p.m. Rudder Theatre, Texas A&M University Campus The Ceremony is part of Distinguished Week, recognizing the following individuals, our Distinguished Graduate Students, and our University Distinguished Professors. FOR TEACHING Ahmed Abdei-Wahab '03, Chemical Engineering Program, Texas A&M University at Qatar Oral Capps, Jr. f Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences John C. Keyser, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Dwight Look College of Engineering Nancy L. Klein, Department of Architecture, College of Architecture Arvind Mahajan, Department of Finance, Mays Business School Stjepan Mestrovic, Department of Sociology, College of Liberal Arts James D. Pennington, Department of Chemistry, College of Science W. Shawn Ramsey '90, Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences Nova J. Silvy, Department of Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences Ching-Yun Suen, Department of General Academics, Texas A&M University at Galveston FOR RESEARCH Deborah Bell-Pedersen, Department of Biology, College of Science Darren L. DePoy, Department of Physics & Astronomy, College of Science Vijay P. Singh, Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences Haiyan Wang, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Dwight Look College of Engineering Mark E. Westhusin '83, Department of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences Kirk 0. Winemiller, Department of Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences FOR STUDENT RELATIONS Sue Geller, Department of Mathematics, College of Science Donna Hajash, Department of Visualization, College of Architecture FOR ADMINISTRATION Eleanor M. Green, Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences FOR EXTENSION, OUTREACH, CONTINUING EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT James C. Cathey '91, Department Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences FOR STAFF Yasser Al-Hamidi, Mechanical Engineering Program, Texas A&M University at Qatar Sandra D. Maldonado, Department of Communication, College of Liberal Arts FOR ADMINISTRATION Michael R. Kinney, Department of Accounting, Mays Business School Dorothy E. Shippen, Department Biochemistry & Biophysics, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences The Distinguished Graduate Student Awards and the Distinguished Achievement Awards are generously funded by gifts to the Annual Fund of The Association of Former Students. Proudly supported by: The Association OF FORMER STUDENTS 5 TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY*