Senior members of the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) are expected to be better equipped to handle mass casualty type incidents as an intensive two day course wrapped up at the National Disaster Management Agency (NaDMA).

Head of the Local Security Committee (LSC) for Cricket World cup 2007, ACP Smith Roberts, was among senior officers attending the incident command workshop, held under the auspices of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) in association with NaDMA.

Participants were taught skills in leadership command control and how to manage a mass casualty incident involving all the other emergency organizations.

The facilitator was Sergeant Peter Burgess of the Barbados Defence Force, attached to PAHO as a Special Advisor. "You will have different agencies working and how they should work together under one command structure, where there is one boss but the command is shared where they can command the events that are happening.. also there is accountability right across the board" Burgess said.

"What it does is that it allows the country and the emergency response agencies to return to normal duties as quickly as possible while providing the best and appropriate care for the people of the country ". The incident command training is part of security preparations for world cup 2007.

Thousands are expected in Grenada to view super eight matches at the national cricket stadium and local security forces are fine tuning their skills to be able to handle mass casualty type incidents which could possibly occur.

'It is important to have a good command structure. Let's say something goes wrong you know that you have people who can coordinate, who can evacuate your stadiums who can get your hospital functioning as it should" he said.

"There is leadership all across the board, everything is coordinated and you minimize the loss to life or damage to facilities or to property and your emergency services can go back to daily routine as quickly as possible".

The National Disaster Management Agency (NaDMA) has already staged several simulation exercises in relations to Disaster Mitigation involving the security forces and more are planned.