California Specialized Training Institute
State of California, Office of Emergency Services

The California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI) is a state operated training center that exists to train law enforcement, emergency management, and other first responders in emergency procedures and tactics, including responses to earthquakes, terrorism, and hazmat spills. It is located on the grounds of Camp San Luis Obispo, a large national guard training base in the mid coast of California. CSTI has several training areas with different functions, and has the only “mock emergency operations center” in the state, where disaster scenarios are played out in a town called Santa Luisa Del Mar, a fictional disaster town modeled after Santa Barbara, but with the addition of a harbor.

A portion of Santa Luisa Del Mar has been assembled in three dimensions for police scenario training using simunitions, out of buildings relocated from other parts of the base ( residence , grocery store , intersection , hotel , restaurant ). Other training areas at CSTI include a large and scattered hazmat training yard, with prop rail cars brought in from actual derailment sites, gas tank props, leaking tanker car prop, and industrial leak house. The Criminal Justice Program at CSTI has developed one of the open shooting ranges on base with some structural props, used for live fire weapons training. The Department of Toxics and Substance Patrol has created what is probably the most elaborate mock clandestine drug lab ( detail 1 , detail 2 , detail 3 , detail 4 , detail 5 ) in the state. Also referred to as a “clan lab” or “meth lab,” prisoners from the state penitentiary across the highway were brought in to decorate it.