The Rockdale County Sheriff's Office and members of Rockdale Fire-Rescue participated in the multi-agency Mobile Communication Vehicle Exercise (MCV) hosted by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA)/Homeland Security last week. The annual training exercise was conducted over a four-day period, May 13 - 16, at Stone Mountain Park.

The exercise provided public safety and communication personnel from various disciplines and agencies from around the state the opportunity to train together and utilize highly technical vehicles and equipment to evaluate their capabilities. This exercise also was an opportunity to evaluate the functionality of the MCVs' radio and communications equipment.

The Rockdale County Sheriff's Office purchased a MCV in 2006 with grant funds provided by Homeland Security. The team has been deployed on a number of natural disasters and participated in various training exercises over the past seven years.

"I would like to thank Fire Chief/Rockdale Emergency Management Agency Director Dan Morgan for having Rockdale firefighters participate in the exercise. This was the first year the Sheriff's Office has partnered with Rockdale Fire-Rescue, and I look forward to continuing building the relationship between the Sheriff's Office and Fire-Rescue and Rockdale Emergency Management on training opportunities," said Sheriff Eric Levett.

The approach of this year's exercise was not scenario-based response, but instead a number of tasks were assigned for each agency's communications unit leaders to complete to demonstrate successful interoperability. Many additional tasks that agencies have not demonstrated in prior exercises were added to the 2013 schedule, including increased involvement with Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES).