Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius addresses a crowd at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Crisis City at the Great Plains Joint Regional Training Center outside Salina. At left is Adjutant General and Director of Kansas Homeland Security Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting. Crisis City is a new National Guard training facility that will allow civil and military personnel to work together on disaster preparedness.

Salina ? Welcome to Crisis City.

It didn’t look like much more than a train wreck Friday, but eventually it will be developed into a 66-acre mock city where the National Guard, emergency management and first responders will train for disasters. The first piece, a derailed train, was unveiled Friday.

State officials said the $9 million investment means training can occur closer to home and more frequently, improving preparedness for natural and man-made events. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius described Crisis City as “a missing piece in the tool kit.”

“We’re really trying to position ourselves not only as a state leader, but a national leader,” Sebelius said.

Disaster central

The derailed train includes an engine and four rail cars where crews will be able to train on handling such things as hazardous materials requiring evacuations, mass casualties and crowd control. The railroad industry donated the engine and cars and will provide training at the site.

“It’s a place where we can train Kansans in Kansas,” said Maj. Dirk Christian, Crisis City’s operations officer and deputy chief of Mission Township Fire Department near Topeka.

Last year, Kansas had seven Federal Emergency Management Agency declared disasters, including the May tornado that nearly destroyed Greensburg.

“This really is a simple thing. It just came about by just talking to people,” Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, state emergency management and homeland security director, said.

He said officials with Texas A&M University’s Disaster City, one of a few similar sites in the U.S., have contacted Kansas about sending some of their backlog of training requests.

“Just the demand to train first responders will keep us busy for years to come,” said Col. Randy Roebuck, commander of the Great Plains Joint Regional Training Center.

Several training centers

Crisis City is the center’s newest component, which includes the Smoky Hill Range Complex, the Kansas Regional Training Institute, the Kansas Army National Guard Training Center and an unmanned aerial vehicle area.

The Smoky Hill Range covers about 36,000 acres southwest of Salina and is used by the Air Force and Air National Guard for exercises. Also, soldiers from Fort Riley have conducted exercises there.

The complex was developed during World War II as Camp Phillips, where soldiers were trained for the war in Europe. Later, the Air Force developed the weapons range and the former Schilling Air Force Base, now Salina’s municipal airport, which was used by adventurer Steve Fossett in 2005 to begin and end the flight in which he became the first person to fly a plane solo around the world without refueling.

Kansas has been developing Crisis City in response to initiatives by Sebelius and Bunting to expand the training of the National Guard, emergency management and first responders.

The state also plans to create four regional training centers to improve state preparedness for natural disasters, emergencies and terrorism. Crisis City will be the hub for the other sites, which have not been built.

The events at Salina are the second in as many weeks Sebelius and the National Guard have announced to expand the state’s training and preparedness capabilities. Last week, Kansas dedicated the new Eisenhower Center for Homeland Security.

That center is at the State Defense Building Complex in Topeka and was built using federal funds. It will allow the state to bring in public and private organizations for classes, seminars and other activities.