Pennsylvania Guard prepares for hurricane season

Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Zane Craig | The Pennsylvania National Guard All Hazards Response Team (AHRT) conducted training with their U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and National Guard Bureau (NGB) counterparts focusing on disaster response to a multi-state region May 4 at Fort Indiantown Gap. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Zane Craig)  

FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, PA, UNITED STATES

05.11.2018

Courtesy Story

Joint Force Headquarters - Pennsylvania National Guard

Story by: Brig. Gen. David Wood

FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. – The Pennsylvania National Guard All Hazards Response Team (AHRT) conducted training with their U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and National Guard Bureau (NGB) counterparts focusing on disaster response to a multi-state region here May 4.

Lt. Col. John Sheaf, the AHRT's J3/7, spent several months coordinating the training event that included military support to civilian authority briefings at the State, NGB, and NORTHCOM levels. The second of half of training centered on a Hurricane response Table-Top Exercise (TTX), incorporating planners and operators from the AHRT's J3 and J5 sections, NORTHCOMs Joint Enabling Capability (JEC) Division and NGB's Joint Enabling Team (JET).

"The training brought together professional DOMOPs personnel that all play an important role in provided and executing support to the emergency on hand,” said Brig. Gen. David Wood, director of the Joint Staff for Pennsylvania. “Such support ensures that unit of effort across the spectrum of capabilities that the DoD can provide to our Civilian emergency response infrastructure."

Many aspects of current domestic operations doctrine were reviewed and discussed during the training. Critical discussion on such topics as the DoD reimbursement process, Duel-Status Command implementation, and reporting procedures set the stage for broad input. Sheaf's work on a hurricane situation manual set the stage for determining best practices in preparedness and response.

"Using FEMA's template for such TTX's, the PA AHRT was able to focus on the exercise, and not get bogged down with assumptions and artificialities," said Sheaf.

"The ability to meet one on one with your counterparts at different levels is invaluable to future collaboration when these terrible events do occur," noted Lt. Col. Pershing Markle, AHRT deputy operations officer.
Working directly in a joint environment was a key objective of the AHRT's training plan, and the relationship among these organizations will certainly continue to be a critical task.

The AHRT continued its week long training as a participant in FEMA's national level exercise “Atlantic Fury." This exercise has more than 10,000 participants in the middle Atlantic region responding to a notional hurricane striking the Chesapeake Bay area through May 11.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Please contact Lt. Col. Angela King-Sweigart [phone], or e-mail [e-mail]

• Date Taken: 05.11.2018
• Date Posted: 06.15.2018 14:05
• Story ID: 280928
• Location: FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, PA, US