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Preparations continue for Jamboree
RELATED STORY: Jamboree may return in 2013
Date published: 7/6/2010
BY PORTSIA SMITH
In less than three weeks, nearly 45,000 Boys Scouts and leaders will make their way to Fort A.P. Hill for the 2010 National Scout Jamboree. For 10 days, the army base in Caroline County will be transformed into Jamboree City, where participants will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. Planning for this jamboree and centennial celebration has been ongoing since the last jamboree in 2005, a tragic year when four adult leaders from Alaska were electrocuted when a pole for a dining tent they were erecting hit a power line. But organizers say they are working to make this "the best, most exciting, fun-filled, safest jamboree ever." BSA's Jamboree Project Coordinator Jim Horner and Hank Hanrahan, a director at Fort A.P. Hill overseeing jamboree operations, took a Free Lance-Star reporter on an exclusive two-hour tour recently to show how the jamboree is coming to life. To improve safety, the jamboree will have an emergency operations center that is four times larger than the one in 2005, Hanrahan said. The Joint Multi-Agency Operations and Command Center was formed after Hurricane Katrina to improve the rapid response of the federal government for emergency situations. That building is now being wired and filled with telephones and huge screens that will monitor the jamboree sites and traffic for security reasons. Hanrahan said it would be like the 911 center of the jamboree staffed by all branches of the military, state and local agencies and will have access to all emergency services in the state. In 2005, this center was only staffed by base staff. An 80-bed mobile hospital will be built that will have full medical emergency capabilities, and a Black Hawk helicopter will be available if transport to an area hospital is needed, Hanrahan said.
Wonderful to bring it back to Caroline County and to Fort AP Hill. I remeber as a child growing up every 5 yrs you would here them say the Boy Scouts are coming. Its for the county, community and the scouts. I know they will have a great time and I look forward to seeing them while they are here.
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