Preparing for a disaster on Kauai

Photo By Ileen Kennedy | Members of Utah's 85th Weapons of Mass Destruction, Civil Support Team (CST), Hawaii's 93rd CST, Guam's 94th CST and Alaska's 103rd CST conduct a relief in place at Barking Sands Pacific Missile Range Facility Aug 30 as they train for disaster support on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.  

SALT LAKE CITY, UT, UNITED STATES

08.30.2017

Story by Ileen Kennedy 

Utah National Guard Public Affairs

KAUAI, Hawaii—Natural disasters can strike without warning threatening catastrophic destruction in its path. The National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction, Civil Support Teams (WMD-CST) train on a broad range of capabilities to respond at a moment’s notice to these disasters.
“One of the main missions of the CST is a natural-disaster response. Hawaii, being in the Pacific Rim, has a lot of natural disaster threats. With weather conditions such as a typhoon or tsunami, they would need other CSTs to go in and help mitigate their chemical issues, if there were chemical spills or fires,” said the deputy commander 85th CST.
Members of Utah's 85th CST, Hawaii's 93rd CST, Guam's 94th CST and Alaska's 103rd CST trained for disaster support on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Utah, Hawaii and Guam are part of the same response region, Region Five, so it becomes crucial that they train together. In all, the four CSTs participated in the exercise along with Kauai Emergency Management Agency, Kauai first responders, Pacific Missile Range Facility and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies as they exercised joint inter-agency operations.
“We are in their response sector, so if Hawaii had a natural disaster or a terrorist attack there, we would be one of the first teams called in to support them,” said the deputy commander 85th CST. “So as such we like to train with them to kind of get the same tactics nailed down to do what we would do in a real-world scenario.”
Each team member has a specific-specialized skill set that can be called upon to augment another state's CST as needed.
"Since every team does things a little differently it's always a benefit to watch each other in exercises," said the 85th CST 1st Sgt.
Part of the exercise was to conduct operations with team members from one of the other CSTs. The Utah CST had a team member from Alaska fulfilling a role on its team. Guam and Hawaii also exchanged teams members to provide cross training for each team.
"When working with other teams it was nice to have one of their guys work with us as far as operations go," said an 85th CST survey team member that worked directly with the Alaska team member supporting Utah. "It was good to see that the teams work very similarly and they can flow right in with one another and continue to work the mission."
"Exercises like this allow us to get together with our own region and work collectively together and also cross pollinate," said the 93rd CST science officer. "Utah is here; we get to see its TTP's (tactics, techniques and procedures); it is a great sharing opportunity for all of us to get together."
"Guam is very isolated and so coming out here and working with Hawaii we will know if we have interoperability," said the 94th CST commander from Guam.
Hawaii and Guam received the initial request for assistance from the Kauai Emergency Management Agency just before 6:00 a.m.
"We activated our personnel at 0600 and arrived at 0700 and linked up with the police on base," said Hawaii's 93rd CST commander. "We are here to support the first responders of Kauai County in the event of a catastrophic event so we are here to train and support first responders."
Hawaii and Guam worked on the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, for the entire day supporting four different site locations.
"We were activated since 6 o'clock this morning and now we are getting ready to do a relief-in-place--it's going on 13 hours," said Guam's commander. "Whenever it goes beyond what we can do, then we ask for assistance from other CSTs to come in and take over."
The 85th and 103rd CSTs arrived just before 6:00 p.m. to relieve the two exhausted teams. The incoming teams had been on standby since noon and were anxious to participate. They would work throughout the night and return to their home station between four and five in the morning.
"We don't do it often, but working from dusk to dawn is something we are use to doing," said an 85th CST survey team member.
The humid conditions were also something the teams had to prepare for.
"The hardest part of this mission is the humidity; when you are in the suit you are already sweating and it's hard to keep cool. When you are in a tropical environment the humidity keeps you sweating and you're not getting the relief from the sweat evaporating so it makes it a lot harder."
Another important factor when deploying to a disaster area is transporting all the specialized equipment. It is crucial to exercise loading and unloading vehicles onto military aircraft to become proficient so delays are minimized during a real-world disaster.
"The air-load portion is important to exercise because we are required to air load once a year to remain proficient on it," said 85th CST deputy commander. "We are required to rapidly deploy to different parts of the country and that may require airlift and so we need to practice because it's a very perishable skill."
The New York Air National Guard transported two survey trucks, an operations vehicle, and a medical response vehicle from Utah on its C-17. For the return trip, Mississippi Air National Guard conducted a military air-lift flight to return the equipment to Utah.
It's good to exercise with people in our region because it gives us an opportunity to work with them in case of a man-made or natural disaster," said 85th CST 1st Sgt. "Its good to see how other teams conduct operations and, of course, its a beautiful part of the country."

• Date Taken: 08.30.2017
• Date Posted: 09.21.2017 15:17
• Story ID: 249120
• Location: SALT LAKE CITY, UT, US
• Hometown: SALT LAKE CITY, UT, US