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    Regional earthquake exercise tests NBK emergency capability

    NBK to support regional earthquake, tsunami exercise

    Photo By Petty Officer 3rd Class Jessica Maue | Naval Base Kitsap (NBK) personnel participate in a four-day disaster response...... read more read more

    NAVAL BASE KITSAP-BREMERTON, WA, UNITED STATES

    06.14.2016

    Story by Jake Chappelle 

    Naval Base Kitsap

    BREMERTON – Bus smashes, floods, sewer main breaks, bridge destruction, crane collapses, buildings up in flames, fuel spills, pillaging, and commanded curfews …

    It all may sound like a precursor to the zombie apocalypse, but these were a few of the nearly 500 scenarios produced to test the wits and emergency preparedness of Naval Base Kitsap (NBK) personnel and its tenant commands last week.

    NBK collaborated with its local civil services partners in exercising disaster response plans during the largest regional earthquake and tsunami exercise, Cascadia Rising June 7 – 10.

    In order to facilitate the recovery campaign, the training morphed into Ardent Century 2016 on June 13 and 14, which pushed the scenario 14 days into the future.

    “If a disaster strikes our area, we have to think about the long term,” said Capt. Tom Zwolfer, NBK commanding officer. “We need to plan how to keep base personnel and family members safe and secure for an extended period of time, while rebuilding our infrastructure to a sustainable level.”

    NBK Emergency Management officer and exercise coordinator, Scott Larson said it was a positive experience, which allowed the players to stay on their toes and think outside the box.

    “The complexity and length (of the drill) stressed elements of the Emergency Management Center (EOC), which haven’t been addressed before,” he said. “(The) exercise provided insight into extended operations, enabling us to work through operational periods, conduct turn-over between watch sections, and execute planning.”

    Larson said the various base operations provided more tools for relief efforts.

    “The large number of commands on the installation participating in the drill provided NBK with a greater resource capability.”

    Larson suggested improvements, including creating ways to handle multiple-incident events. For example, participants had to work through how to communicate with other commands when standard communications methods were inoperable. This made it difficult for other commands on base to fully grasp the multiple areas of concern, function, and operations, according to Larson.

    During one part of the drill, the installation was communicating with the county emergency operations center by ham radio to test the capability.

    Zwolfer said these drills are the safest way to remedy these emergency issues.

    “This is why we participate in these exercises,” he said. “It’s better to make mistakes and learn from them in this arena, than deal with them in the real world.”

    Overall, the NBK staff was able to adapt to and overcome all of the new information hurled their way, said Rich Miller, NBK Training and Readiness Manager, and one of the minds behind creating the exercise for the base.

    “I ran out of obstacles,” Miller said. “I created 480 injections – where players were presented with new information in real time and were required to respond accordingly – and expected them to get through about 300; they exhausted every single one of them.”

    Along with coordinating with the Kitsap County EOC, NBK staff teamed up with other Navy Region Northwest (NRNW) installations, including Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and Naval Station Everett to improve the situational awareness of county and state status during the exercise.

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 06.14.2016
    Date Posted: 06.23.2016 13:33
    Story ID: 202256
    Location: NAVAL BASE KITSAP-BREMERTON, WA, US
    Hometown: BANGOR, WA, US
    Hometown: NAVAL AIR STATION WHIDBEY ISLAND, WA, US
    Hometown: NAVAL BASE KITSAP-BREMERTON, WA, US
    Hometown: NAVAL STATION EVERETT, WA, US
    Hometown: POULSBO, WA, US

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