Once an active shooter drill wraps up on Thursday, loud ground-shaking explosions are possible in New Jersey as Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst completes various training exercises. Unlike the recent natural activity triggered by severe thunderstorms and/or earthquakes, the noise and seismic activity expected in the Garden State is part of a large military exercise scheduled from Friday into Saturday.
According to an update released by the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, the 87 Air Base Wing will execute a full-scale Active Shooter Exercise to “validate, evaluate and inspect implementation of installation plans, thereby ensuring the joint base is execution-ready.”
During this active shooter drill, the command post will be conducting multiple voice messages to ensure that all of the giant speakers around the installation are working fine. The drill messages will begin and end with the words “exercise, exercise, exercise.”
According to the base update, this drill could cause occasional inconveniences to gate traffic, travel, and services performed during scheduled response actions.
With the Active Shooter Drill wrapped up on Thursday, the base will prepare for a significant live fire military drill in which mortar fire, howitzer fire, and cratering explosions will be employed on Friday and Saturday. In an announcement to the public, the base said the drill will create “abundant noise”, which is the highest level of three categories of noise/movement the base uses to inform neighboring communities of what to expect there. There is no need for people to call 911 or reach out to other local officials should they hear or feel the action from these drills.
The weather forecast in the coming days could also amplify the action coming from the military base. Low clouds associated with a weak disturbance moving through the region from the Great Lakes could make noise travel farther.
While the loudest exercise should wrap up Saturday, moderature noise is expected to linger for another week while the military base hosts other drills. From the 5th to the 11th, and again from the 13th to 17th, 0.50 caliber weapons, rocket fire, and rotary cannons could also cause communities in New Jersey to rock and rumble from the munitions.
Joint Base McGuire–Dix–Lakehurst is a U.S. military facility located 18 miles southeast of Trenton, New Jersey. The base is the only tri-service base in the United States Department of Defense and includes units from all six armed forces branches. The facility is a combination of the United States Air Force’s McGuire Air Force Base, the United States Army’s Fort Dix and the United States Navy’s Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst. The bases were merged on October 1, 2009.
