SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — Multiple agencies—including state police, the Coast Guard, and Army National Guard—trained for hostage, explosive, and nuclear material situations on a cruise ship docked in South Portland on Wednesday morning.
It’s part of a four-day series of trainings, including operations in Winthrop and Houlton. The cruise ship is the Ocean Navigator — the ship that had been docked there since October, when an apparent explosion in the engine room injured a crew member and cut short its cruise.
Leadership with the Maine Army National Guard, who acted as a liaison with the press, said the ship's owners offered it as a training ground.
The broad operation was named Katahdin Shield. U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Alicia Flanagan sat at a computer in the operation's command center staged at a South Portland hotel. She said all of these local, state, and federal resources were being used so that, if nefarious actors try something in Maine or New England, these teams would be ready to work together seamlessly.
"In the event that we do go through something—some kind of catastrophe or incident—it's not the first time that we've thought about it," she explained. "It's not the first time that we've worked together."
On Monday, a hazmat team from Vermont trained for a hypothetical terrorist attack on a presidential rally at Portland's Cross Insurance Arena, involving an explosive and anthrax. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Anthony Sturgis, of the Maine Army National Guard, helped oversee the training.
"We try to work within all of the potential target locations or vulnerable locations that we possibly can," he said, speaking of the arena and the other venues used around the state.
The training was scheduled to conclude on Thursday. Leaders said this isn’t an annual gathering, but that they try to accomplish something similar semi-regularly, rotating the host state each time.