Cobalt Magnet 22 photo gallery

The Cobalt Magnet 22 exercise scenario centered on Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas. Here, a simulated media team from Argonne National Laboratory reports from the scene.

A member of the Austin Fire Department checks an Austin Police Department officer for radiological contamination using a handheld detector during the Cobalt Magnet 22 exercise.

A field monitoring team takes radiological readings in the area surrounding Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas, during the Cobalt Magnet 22 exercise.

The leaders of the exercise do a pre-brief for hundreds of participants at the Armed Forces Center in Austin, which hosted the Cobalt Magnet 22 command post.

The Cobalt Magnet exercise utilized the Incident Command System’s Unified Command concept, where local and federal agency representatives work together to address the incident. Here, the Austin-area participants met their NNSA colleagues for the first time.

Exercise “controllers,” in the red vests, evaluated how “players” overcame various “injects” – or twists – in the Cobalt Magnet scenario.

One NNSA mission is to create actionable information for decision makers. Here, an expert creates a plume map to show how far wind had carried the radiological material during the Cobalt Magnet 22 exercise.

An Austin-area hospital receives simulated patients from the “dirty bomb explosion simulated in the Cobalt Magnet exercise.

NNSA’s Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site (REAC/TS) helped community reception centers provide emergency response and subject matter expertise on the medical management of radiation incidents during the Cobalt Magnet exercise.

Members of the Unified Command Group leadership discuss protective action during the Cobalt Magnet exercise.

The Unified Command held a briefing before simulated members of the media during the Cobalt Magnet exercise.

NNSA’s Aerial Measuring System aircraft operated throughout the Cobalt Magnet exercise to determine the extent and severity of radiological contamination.

Austin Public Health hosted a Community Reception Center radiological material decontamination station. CRCs are where displaced people in the exercise could have gone to be assessed for contamination during the Cobalt Magnet 22 exercise.

An NNSA field-monitoring sample collection site used during the Cobalt Magnet exercise.

The exercise utilized a Joint Information Center, which brought together public affairs staffers from federal, state, and local organizations to keep the simulated public and media informed during Cobalt Magnet.

Members of Argonne National Laboratory’s Public Affairs Science and Technology Fusion Cell played the part of television reporters during the Cobalt Magnet exercise, attempting to ask difficult, but relevant questions so participants would better understand how the media might be like during real radiological event.

After the Cobalt Magnet 22 exercise, the organizers held a “hot wash” – a discussion of what went well and what didn’t.