Emergency response exercise at LHC Point 5, at CMS in Cessy, France

The emergency response exercise at LHC Point 5 was held at CMS in Cessy, France, with the involvement of French, Swiss and CERNois safety and rescue teams. For almost four hours, the 260 participants wreaked a perfectly orchestrated and executed havoc at Point 5, on the surface and in the CMS and HL-LHC caverns. The complexity of the exercise’s scenario was mirrored by the number and variety of teams involved. Supported by 90 CERN volunteers, who helped with coordination and safety and played the role of technicians, visitors and casualties, the main stars of the morning were seven safety and rescue teams hailing from one international organisation (the CERN Fire and Rescue Service) and two countries (the French and Swiss fire brigades and civil protection forces, plus the Brigade Sanitaire Cantonale and the Swiss Samaritains rescue association, with their Piquet Catastrophe group). Also attending as spectators were Mauro Poggia, the canton of Geneva's State councillor in charge of security, population and health, and Pascaline Boulay, Sous-Préfète of Gex and Nantua in France, as all of this falls under the framework of the tripartite agreement binding CERN, France and Switzerland for matters of emergency response.