It happens anywhere between six to 12 times a year: a child walks away from a home or an elderly person with Alzheimer’s disease is reported missing. Most are found quickly. Some are a little harder to find, triggering a wider search that involves law enforcement, EMS, firefighters and draws on state resources and volunteers.

That kind of cohesive response takes training, according to Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Charlie Rose.

“The more coordinated the effort of the search itself, the better the results, the quicker the result will be,” Rose said. “If it’s not systematic and standardized, you’re counting on luck as opposed to skill.”

Next weekend, many of those resources will be on hand at Beaufort County Emergency Management’s 2016 SARX — Search and Rescue Exercise — that will take place at Camp Bonner North, east of Washington. From Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, a full-scale wilderness search and rescue mission will be running day and night, giving search teams the opportunity to practice tracking, ground searching, working with canine and mounted teams, communications and support.

“It is a skill, and this training hones the skill,” Rose said.

The annual SAR exercise has typically drawn 30 to 40 people, some of who are local, others, from outside the area. To varying degrees, first responders have participated in past years, but this is the first time the sheriff’s office and emergency management are taking the lead on the event.

That’s about preparing for an efficient and effective local response, according to Curtis Avery, Beaufort County fire marshal and interim emergency manager.

“This year, our local responders have expressed interest in it and in building teams. We’re trying to build a local team on this to assist the sheriff’s office in any future searches,” Avery said. “We’ll have a team together that’s trained in this that know how to effectively develop a search.”

In real land searches, those roles are assigned to the people who have expertise — in tracking, questioning family members, assessing a mental or medical history, developing a search plan — but it’s exercises like this that allow people to develop the expertise in a controlled setting, rather than on the job, according to Rose. The sheriff’s office has invited both its patrol deputies, who would usually respond to a land search, and supervisors to attend.

“All the training is a benefit to Beaufort County and the surrounding areas,” Rose said.

Avery said that in addition to fire, EMS, rescue and law enforcement personnel, representatives from the American Red Cross and Salvation Army will be participating, as they have participated in the planning meetings for the exercise.

“It’s about us building a team here and everybody having input instead of one organization taking over,” Avery said. “It takes all of us to make it work. We’re all links in the chain.”

The exercise will be taking place around the clock next weekend. Rose said he did not anticipate the public being affected by the SAR exercise since it will be contained to the Camp Bonner property.