The North Carolina Emergency Training Center (NCETC)

The North Carolina Emergency Training Center (NCETC) is a purpose-built, high-performance training environment designed to prepare first responders for the most dangerous and unpredictable water-related emergencies. Located at Stanly County Airport, the facility brings together swiftwater rescue, aviation fire response, and urban flood simulation into a single, fully integrated campus.

Unlike traditional aquatic environments designed for recreation, NCETC operates as a precision-engineered hydraulic system, where every component is calibrated to replicate the behavior of water under real emergency conditions.

location

Stanly County Airport, North Carolina

client

Stanly County

scope

Cloward H2O served as the aquatic and hydraulic systems engineer, responsible for developing the detailed layout, hydraulic performance, and structural design of the channel systems.

Cloward H2O and Calibre/S2o collaborated to develop advanced hydraulic models, which were then validated and refined through physical modeling. This process allowed the team to:

• Confirm flow behavior under multiple operating conditions
• Refine fixed channel geometries
• Develop flexible scenario configurations using RapidBlocs

This iterative feedback loop ensured that the final system performs not just as predicted—but as required in real-world training applications.