National Guard to simulate Mackinac Island emergency evacuation
In an emergency, how would the entire population on Mackinac Island get to safety in St. Ignace or Mackinaw City?
The Michigan National Guard and the Mackinac County Office of Emergency Management are going to find out.
The guard and the office of emergency management are staging a two-day simulated evacuation, starting at noon Thursday through 6 p.m. and resuming Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The event comes as September is National Preparedness Month, which is designed to raise awareness of the importance of preparing for disasters and emergencies.
The point of the simulation is to assemble a floating dock that can be shoved into the shoreline at British Point on the island, so that during an evacuation, visitors and residents could gather to board ferries that would take them to Mackinaw City and St. Ignace, said Mike Kasper, emergency management coordinator for Mackinac County.
During the exercise, bridging bays will be flown by Army National Guard helicopters from the Mackinac County Airport in St. Ignace to British Landing. Once those bays are dropped into the water, within 1,000 feet of the shoreline, 10 Army National Guard boats will be there to help assemble the bays. Approximately 250 county, state and federal employees will participate from 18 different agencies. The number of participants includes 30 who will walk from various locations on the island to the temporary dock.
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The guard said there may traffic delays, during the exercise, at the end of the airport along the I-75 business spur. There will be a public viewing area along Lake Shore Drive at the northwest tip of the island.
The Michigan National Guard's 1437th engineer company out of Sault St. Marie is the company that will be building an alternate port for evacuation of Mackinac Island. The 1437th is a multi-role bridge company that provides personnel and equipment to transport, assemble, disassemble, retrieve and maintain U.S. Army bridging systems for wet or dry crossings.
Contact Jennifer Dixon: jbdixon@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: National Guard to simulate evacuation of Mackinac Island
