Preparing for hurricane season

Soldiers Magazine, August, 2007 by Don Wagner

IT was a chilling scenario: "Hurricane Yvette," with wind gusts up to 130 mph and 9-to-12-foot wave surges, was bearing down on the nation's northeast coast.

The Category-3 hurricane had New England residents and emergency responders braced for the worst. Federal and state officials scrambled to the Cranston Street Armory in Providence, R.I., to prepare for the hurricane and manage recovery efforts in its aftermath.

Fortunately for all concerned, Hurricane Yvette was only part of Exercise Ardent Sentry-Northern Edge '07, which was conducted across the country earlier this year. The hurricane portion of the exercise involved the six New England states, New York, Federal Emergency Management Regions I and II, and numerous federal agencies. The exercise was meant to test the full range of domestic hurricane-response, incident-management procedures under the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Response Plan and the 2007 Hurricane Concept of Operations Plan.

The event was the capstone of preparations for what National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials predict will be a "very active" Atlantic hurricane season that could produce up to 16 named storms between June 1 and Nov. 30.

U.S. Northern Command co-sponsored the hurricane-preparedness event with the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA and the Department of Defense. It was the largest and most complex exercise NORTHCOM has yet undertaken in terms of participants, duration, venues and cost.

From Fort Sam Houston, Texas, U.S. Army, North--NORTHCOM's Army service component command--responded to the simulated hurricane by deploying to Providence its Operational Command Post 2 (organized as Joint Task Force-Falcon) and the Region I Defense Coordinating Officer and Element.

For the first time, USARNORTH worked side-by-side with its federal and local counterparts in a civil-support role that previously had only been simulated.

"There is no substitute for getting on the ground and working with our partners," said Brig. Gen. Mark Graham, USARNORTH's deputy commanding general.

"Deploying the command-and-control elements was valuable not just for the military participants, Brig. Gen. Graham noted, but also for federal, state and local officials who might never before have worked with the military.

"Moving units is not as easy as it might seem in a game or simulation," he said. "Exercising together gives our interagency partners a better idea of the time, distances and amount of support it takes to bring in military forces."

In each of FEMA's 10 regions, defense coordinating officers keep their fingers on the pulses of their federal and local counterparts.

"Army North works daily with federal and local governments to prepare for defense support to civil authorities," said Col. Frank Kosich, USARNORTH's defense coordinating officer for FEMA's Region I. "The training offers us the chance to exercise our plans with federal, state and local agencies."

The exercise tested and solidified the working relationships among FEMA, all branches of the DOD, the Coast Guard, and many other emergency-response organizations.

JTF-Falcon commander Maj. Gen. Thomas Matthews said the hurricane scenario brought together the diverse cultures and assets of local, state and federal agencies.

"Throughout the exercise we demonstrated the power of combining 'Army Strong' with joint-service capabilities in a world-class civil-response team," he said.

Officials spent a year planning the exercise, which was intended to test participating agencies' abilities to respond both to the hurricane scenario and to "terrorist attacks" in the Midwest and Alaska.

During the exercise, Col. Kosich teamed with Mr. James Russo, FEMA's federal coordinating officer at the federal joint field office in Cranston.

"We purposely built a sense of urgency into the exercise to bring out the best in the participants," said Mr. Russo. "With training, we will get better and better."

Lt. Col. Paul Condon, chief of USARNORTH's exercise division, said the exercise allowed all the players to build stronger relationships. The goal was to stress all participants in order to maximize the training benefit, he added.

Participants in Rhode Island repeatedly commented on the value of the training and coordination that came out of their joint efforts, but they also looked forward to evaluations that would follow.

"We want to learn how to do a better job of anticipating needs and provide more timely responses," said Lt. Col. Joe Stawick, operations ofricer at USARNORTH's Operational Command Post 2.

"The degree of cooperation between state and federal agencies couldn't have been better," said Col. Kosich, in an early analysis of the New England exercise. "Everyone was focused on helping citizens in need. We learned that we need to adapt to circumstances quickly, so that we get the right resources to the right place at the right time.

"It's also critical to manage the information we have and get the right information to decision makers, so they can make informed decisions in a timely manner," he said.