FEMA exercise goes live: Texas National Guardsmen ordered to chemical plant explosion

Published on 18 Apr 2013

National Level Exercises (NLE 13) functional exercise. Federal, state, regional, local, international, nongovernmental, and private sector partners participated in this weeks exercise, the capstone event of a White House-directed, Congressional mandated preparedness events. Notably, exercise activities were carefully balanced with ongoing efforts to respond to and recover from real-world earthquakes and WMD-related disasters in the Southern and Central United States. Although some partners in FEMA had to reduce their participation due to these events, their actions, requests, and decisions were simulated to allow for robust and realistic exercise play. Simultaneously conducting NLE 13 and managing real-world disasters results in a realistic “worst-case scenario.” Consequently, Region VI players are currently testing the Nation’s ability to respond to several devastating events, strengthening the country’s preparedness through real life events….

Vigilant Guard is a national-level disaster response exercise conducted four times a year by the National Guard Bureau and the United States Northern Command in conjunction with civilian first responders and local governments around the United States.

BRAGGS – Victims with realistic fake injuries stumbled like zombies to the triage tent during the Oklahoma National Guard’s earthquake simulation while jackhammers drilled through concrete rubble in a search for more victims.
Uniformed soldiers triaged the wounded, sent them through decontamination and then to medical professionals for stabilization.

It was the constructed aftermath at Camp Gruber of a massive earthquake in northeastern Arkansas, an area that has produced devastating earthquakes in the past and one that Guard units from six states trained to respond to.

More than 900 soldiers from Guard units in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Indiana and Kentucky are participating in the “Vigilant Guard” exercise alongside emergency management personnel from northwestern Arkansas this week at Camp Gruber, at Fort Chaffee in western Arkansas and at Camp Robinson in central Arkansas.

“We have to be able to respond to civil emergencies, and that’s one of the requirements of the Guard,” said Lt. Col. John Altebaumer, deputy commander of Camp Gruber.

The large exercise simulated a magnitude 7.7 earthquake along the New Madrid seismic zone. Located in the northeast corner of Arkansas, experts fear that an earthquake of that magnitude there could cause extensive damage.

The fault has a history of strong earthquakes. More than 200 years ago, several were felt in an area of about 1 million square miles and reportedly rang church bells in Boston.

The 1811-12 earthquakes had an estimated magnitude of about 8 and are the strongest recorded in the eastern U.S. But because the area was sparsely populated, damage and casualties near the epicenter were minimal.

“Hopefully never a magnitude of 7.7, but it can happen,” said John Luther, emergency management director for Washington County, Ark. “We don’t know what the effects would be, but we can guess it would be bad.”

Luther was coordinating search and rescue efforts at some of the collapsed structures with the National Guard. The two groups wouldn’t usually interact on operations except in mass casualty events, which makes joint training exercises important for both groups.

Luther said the operation gives his crews confidence that they can respond in the quickest and most efficient manner if something were to happen.

“It helps the morale as a team member knowing they’ll be able to get in the field to do the work,” he said. “We’re a small unit, so the Guard helps as a force multiplier.”

“That gives us some realistic experience,” said Capt. Chris Hall of the Louisiana National Guard Search and Rescue units. “By the time we pull up, they’re tired. They need relief. That’s when we pick up.”

As he spoke, a group of search and rescue soldiers specializing in rope rescues walked by. He said they had been given the task of rescuing a woman and her baby at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

When they got to her, they learned that the baby had died. They had to help the mother – a role player hired for the day from the Muskogee area – and deal with her distress.

“We really test the soldiers’ ability when we put them in a situation like that,” Hall said.

The facilities at Camp Gruber are designed for these types of exercises, Altenbaumer said.

Exercise organizers are able to simulate a collapsed building, and the camp has the space for the operations, he said.

Although this exercise was focused on an earthquake aftermath, similar tactics would be used in other large-scale disasters, such as tornadoes or wildfires, Altenbaumer said.