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Dorene Lund (DO-GH) and Candy Geeter (DO-GH) enjoyed
their proverbial 15 minutes of fame on November 13, as CREST hosted
its first, full-fledged training exercise for the Oakland County Sheriff’s
Special Response Team (SRT).
A helicopter hovered, police cars chased a bank robber,
and officers in black military-style fatigues armed with a variety of
guns and riot shields swarmed all over the CREST site at OCC’s Auburn
Hills Campus.
The training exercise included a bank robbery, a police
chase, a hostage-taking, hostage negotiations and a drug raid of a home.
Candy played the role of the bank teller and Doreen was the hostage,
nabbed by the escaping bank robber (actually Deputy Norm Campbell of
the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department) as she pumped gas into her
minivan at CREST’s gas station.
Special Response Team members from the Oakland County
Sheriff’s Department take aim during CREST’s first full-fledged training
exercise on November 13.
Mission accomplished: Special Response Team members
capture bank-robber and hostage-taker (a.k.a. Deputy Norm Campbell of
the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department).
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Campbell told The Detroit News that he’d "done
a lot of training in warehouses and abandoned buildings, and most
of the time they’re run down. This [CREST] is dynamic, and is
the closest thing you can get to the real thing."
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said it was "exciting to have
facilities where we can practice real-life scenarios without disrupting
a neighborhood or business community. This gives us an opportunity to
experiment with different approaches to emergency situations. We don’t
have the luxury of experimenting in a real-life situation."
CREST – the Combined Regional Emergency Services Training center – is
the only site of its type in the country and is a national model for
providing police, fire and EMT personnel with comprehensive, scenario-based
training. The facility is located on 22 acres of the Auburn Hills campus.
The simulated city that’s been rising on the site currently has three
furnished homes, a school, a convenience store and gas station, a bank,
a motel and offices. It also has two-lane streets with traffic signals
and sidewalks.
Some of those streets and buildings were officially named on November
19. OCC’s Board of Trustees approved titles for four CREST locations,
honoring corporations that have made significant contributions in cash
and services to CREST during its first phase, now nearing completion.
The roadway surrounding the fire simulation structure to be built at
the west end of CREST will be named "TAKATA Circle" in recognition of
the worldwide automotive supplier’s donation of a 2002 Dodge Ram truck.
The vehicle was raffled by the college in May, raising $38,000 for the
CREST project. TAKATA also donated an additional $600 to help promote
the raffle.
Consumers Energy will be recognized by street signs bearing the name
"Consumers Energy Foundation Avenue" to be placed on CREST’s southernmost
east-west street. The naming acknowledges a $30,000 grant from the Consumers
Energy Foundation to be applied toward construction of the CREST fire
training facility. Groundbreaking for the structure, which marks the
next phase of the CREST project, is to take place in January of next
year.
CREST’s replica bank will be named "Standard Federal Bank" in recognition
of that corporation’s contributions of labor, inkind gifts valued at
$128,000 and a $3,000 cash donation. The in-kind gifts include all furniture,
interior and exterior fixtures and signage. To further ensure authenticity,
Standard Federal also made their own blueprints available to serve as
guides in the building’s design.
The college’s construction managers, the George W. Auch Company, will
be memorialized by the naming of CREST’s northernmost east-west road
"Auch Company Drive". The firm conducted a fundraising drive among its
subcontractors, suppliers, vendors and architects which raised $41,350.
On its own, the Auch Company provided matching funds in the amount of
$25,000, bringing the grand total to $66,350.
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