SWAT Team Demonstrates Hazmat Suits At DelCo Meeting

MEDIA–Those who attended the Delaware County Council meeting on Tuesday were given a demonstration of how the Hazardous Materials SWAT team can quickly respond to a terrorist attack.

Two members of the Haverford Township Police Department, patrolmen Mark Mouraview and Larry Howard Jr., put on hazmat training suits to demonstrate to council members and attendees of the adjourned meeting what the suits looked like. The demonstration was held in the courtyard of the County Court House.

The two patrolmen exited the County of Delaware Major Incident Response Team vehicle, parked in the courtyard, clad in blue hazmat training suits, which weigh about 40 pounds each, including the air tank.

On average, a trained response member of the Level B Hazardous Materials SWAT Team, of which both Mouraview and Howard are members, can stay in the suits for 45 to 60 minutes, depending on the amount of air left in the tank or how overexerted the person wearing the suit gets, explained Howard.

Howard said that despite the suit’s bulky look, it is flexible and it takes about 10 minutes to get into.

Each suit costs $1,500, with the air tank costing an additional $2,500, Howard said.

Before the demonstration, Council Chairman John Whelan said that 15 out of the 22 members of the specialized SWAT Team went to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, AL, for special training.

Part of the training was having members being placed in a room while wearing the hazmat suits as 15 drops of sarin nerve agent was released into the room, which is enough to kill 8,000 people, explained Mouraview.

“Following release of sarin into the air, people can be exposed through skin contact or eye contact. They can also be exposed by breathing air that contains sarin,” stated the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site.

According to Whelan, the specialized SWAT team provides Delaware County law enforcement with a “rapid strike capability” to respond to terrorist attacks, such as chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks, and bombings.

Whelan told Patch that some possible terrorist targets in the county could be places where there are a large number of people, such as Harrah’s casinos in Chester, and other locations of national interests, such as the oil refineries and Boeing–the maker, among other things, of military helicopters.