National Guard Troops to Train in Central New York Next Week

ORISKANY, N.Y. (05/10/2012)(readMedia)-- More than 700 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen from New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands come together next week at the New York State Preparedness Center here to prepare for certification as a regional disaster response force.

Residents may notice increased military traffic in the Oriskany, Rome and Utica areas as the HRF arrives and conducts its final training preparations and validation exercise.

The organization, known as a National Guard Homeland Response Force, will train both at the New York National Guard Armory in Utica and Oriskany at the New York State Preparedness Center to certify their readiness to assist responders following a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or High Explosive incident.

Area news media should expect a media advisory early next week announcing coverage opportunities for the training later next week.

Imagery of CBRN past exercises can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/nyng/with/6318118607/ and video imagery of the National Guard Emergency Response Training at Oriskany in April 2011 can be found at the New York National Guard video archive at http://dmna.ny.gov/video/video.php for download.