Summary of Mine Emergency Command Center Training
Project Mine Emergency Command Center Training (MECCT) will fill a safety gap for underground coal mines in Alabama by providing training to mine emergency command center personnel. The project will make a positive contribution to the MSHA program goals of creating more effective training and training materials to improve safety. Training will be provided through a simulated command center that MECCT will establish at the College’s underground simulated mine. Command center staff will conduct a real-time disaster scenario in conjunction with the mine’s mine rescue teams or state-sponsored rescue teams, who will receive their required annual in-smoke training. This training will bring together two components of a mine rescue operation who have not trained together previously. Training will also involve, where appropriate, the mine’s safety director and staff in engineering, human resources, and public relations to train them in their roles during a crisis.
Training will involve seven-hour sessions, with the day starting with two hours of classroom instruction. This will be followed by a four-hour simulation. The simulation will require the command center team to manage numerous variables – including instructional staff to simulate the chaos of a mine emergency. Scenarios will be created for each mine that will utilize their own mine maps in the command center to make the training as authentic as possible. The team will spend the last hour of their training in a debriefing session to discuss positives and areas needing improvement.
Grant Topic
The Bevill State Community College mining department proposes to address the lack of training for personnel operating a command center during a underground mine emergency with Project Mine Emergency Command Center Training (MECCT). The project will train 200 personnel who would be directly involved in a mine emergency from eight large and small underground mine operations in Alabama. Training will connect command center staff and mine rescue teams in real-time scenarios utilizing a simulated command center established at the College’s simulated underground mine. Additionally, the project will produce a Training Manual for trainees to utilize in their mine operations and a Project Operations Handbook, which can be used by other training facilities as a model for establishing a simulated command center.
