U.S. Army North conducts annual Region 9 Certification Exercise

PLEASANTON, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES

11.03.2022

Courtesy Story

U.S. Army North

PLEASANTON, Calif. – U.S. Army North, recently conducted and certified the Region 9 Defense Coordinating Element during the first post-COVID-19 certification exercise, which assesses the team’s ability to rapidly and effectively support civilian authorities during disaster response.

The Defense Coordinating Element team plans, trains, and exercises year-round alongside local, state, and federal partners to be ready to provide active-duty military support to civilian partners during natural or man-made disasters.

There are 10 Defense Coordination Officers/Elements co-located with each Federal Emergency Management Agency region whose job, when requested, is to translate federal military resources and capabilities to support civilian agencies. The Region 9 Defense Coordinating Element includes California, Nevada, and Arizona.

This year’s exercise focused on an earthquake and tsunami response scenario along the Cascadia subduction zone affecting the northern part of the state of California. It focused on refining processes and strengthening our internal and external relationships with FEMA, ARNORTH staff, the dual-status commander and the U.S. Northern Command Joint Enabling Capability.

Exercise training objectives included conducting mission command; tactical deployment and redeployment activities; command post operations to support operations; information management; providing support for domestic disasters; and planning, preparing and executing DSCA operations.

During the exercise, the FEMA Incident Management Assistance Team embedded seamlessly into the exercise scenario and worked closely with the Region 9 DCE team, allowing for replication of relationships that are necessary when disaster strikes.

“Injecting TF 51 (ARNORTH’s contingency command post) and the NORTHCOM JEC in support of the DSC into the exercise allowed us to build relationships between our teams and understand the dynamics/complexities of support in large-scale Defense Support of Civil Authorities events,” said Col. Charles McPhail, Region 9 Defense Coordinating Officer. “This type of multi-echelon training is a format that needs to be continued in further CERTEXs and was demonstrated successfully by my team.”

These CERTEXs offers a unique learning experience for the DCE region teams to identify gaps, refine plans, and build relationships for maximum preparedness in support of a real-world DSCA event.
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• Date Taken: 11.03.2022
• Date Posted: 01.04.2023 14:26
• Story ID: 436255
• Location: PLEASANTON, CALIFORNIA, US