EMERGENCY STATE: First Responder and Law Enforcement Training Architecture in Southern California
The scenario grounds of emergency training in Southern California include mock hazardous material spills, train wrecks, building collapses, fires, and debris strewn landscapes. Police trainees contend with civil decay, robberies, hostage situations, looting, riots, and snipers in mini-Main Street environments called Situation Simulation Villages, Tactical Training Sites, or Hogan’s Alleys, where live weapons or small dye-filled rounds (known as simunition) lend realism to the scenario. Whether they are made for police or fire departments, these training sites are stylized versions of ordinary places, with the extraordinary horrors of the anticipated future played out on a routine basis. In Southern California, where these sites are juxtaposed with the prop towns and backlots of the Hollywood scenery makers, training villages and emergency props range from the typical to the state-of-the-art. In disaster situations, from car accidents to riots to earthquakes to terrorist attacks, when order breaks down, the worlds of police, fire departments, and the military, coming to our defense, merge to become the reigning order—the emergency state.
2004 CLUI Research Project
READ THE NEWSLETTER ARTICLE ABOUT EMERGENCY STATE
Explore First Responder and Law Enforcement Training Architecture in Southern California:
LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT ACADEMY
EDWARD M. DAVIS TRAINING CENTER
TACTICS AND SURVIVAL TRAINING FACILITY
EMERGENCY VEHICLE OPERATIONS CENTER
FRANK HOTCHKIN MEMORIAL TRAINING CENTER
