Podcast #85: Cal OES Leads Covid19-Safe Radiological Exercise ‘Sentinel Response 2021’

In the words of our guest for this episode, “Table top is one thing. Getting your knuckles dirty is another.” Cal OES Assistant Fire Joe Gear takes a few minutes to sit down and talk with us about his role as incident commander, and that of Cal OES’s role, as well as the overall operations for Sentinel Response 2021. This is a detailed, complex all-of-government exercise that puts local, state, federal and military responders through the ringer during a two-day, hands-on training drill. This annual event usually takes place in Region-2, though it did happen in Sacramento in 2018. This time, the training site is the Naval Weapons Station Concord, a World War II-era military base that has long-since been decommissioned pending full closure. Nevertheless, the Navy offered it as the site for this year’s exercise.