Hawaii Guardsmen join in Alaska earthquake-tsunami exercise

Photo By Katie Gray | A Hawaii Army National Guardsman cuts wood to reinforce a door in a dilapidated building during Exercise Alaska Shield and Vigilant Guard-Alaska 2014, in Anchorage, March 28-30, 2014. The Soldier is part of the search-and-extraction team of Hawaii’s CERF-P, and traveled to Alaska to participate in the exercise which mimics a 1964 earthquake.  

ANCHORAGE, AK, UNITED STATES

04.04.2014

Story by Staff Sgt. Katie Gray 

117th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment (Hawaii)

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska — The scenario is a 9.3 magnitude earthquake in Prince William Sound’s Jonah Bay. With a tsunami warning also in effect, the governor of Alaska has declared a state of emergency disaster and activated the National Guard.

This scenario is part of Exercise Alaska Shield and Vigilant Guard-Alaska 2014, and over 130 Hawaii National Guardsmen responded to the call. As members of Hawaii’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Enhanced Response Force Package (CERF-P), the Guardsmen act as first responders during natural disasters.

“Our Hawaii CERF-P team will come in, do search and extraction, and once we get the victims out we will move them through decontamination,” explained Lt. Col. James Barros, the Hawaii CERF-P commander, “then move them through our medical piece, and then hand them off to civilians.”

VG-AK14 falls on the 50th anniversary of Alaska’s 1964 earthquake that generated the second largest recorded tsunami, and affected California and Oregon. Hawaii Guardsmen worked closely with the Oregon National Guard, sharing equipment and working opposite day and night shifts.

“It’s really that relief-in-place that I wanted to focus on in coming to Alaska,” Barros said. “I wanted them to mobilize in Hawaii, deploy somewhere, get in and work the relief-in-place with another team because this is actually very realistic for us—there is a natural disaster somewhere in the Pacific and it’s so large that they need help, so they look to Hawaii…to be able to use our Air Guard assets, to load up and come out here and be on the ground and ready to roll.”

The Hawaii CERF-P team left behind their own equipment when they travelled to Alaska, and shared equipment with Oregon. This allowed the team to respond and move to the area more quickly, but made communication between the states even more important.

“Deploying the team somewhere was a big muscle move for us. In fact, in the Pacific… we’re the CERF-P team that can deploy pretty much anywhere that they need us,” said Barros.

After firefighters and Army Guardsmen found and extracted actors posing as victims, the patients made their way through a decontamination line, an Air Guard medical station for stabilization, and then were handed off to civilian paramedics.

Air Force Capt. Kim Gushikuma, a medical surgery nurse with the 154th Medical Group, Hawaii Air Guard, compared the exercise to working in a hospital, “It’s a lot different, it’s much faster paced, more trauma, more treat them and get them out of there…It’s a lot more exciting out here.”

• Date Taken: 04.04.2014
• Date Posted: 04.05.2014 04:33
• Story ID: 124423
• Location: ANCHORAGE, AK, US
• Hometown: HONOLULU, HI, US