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WASHINGTON — The Air Force Intelligence Analysis Agency was recently recognized for having an exceptional emergency management program.
On Feb. 23, JBAB Office of Emergency Management members, along with two staff sergeants from the 707th Communications Squadron at Fort George G. Meade, Md., paid a staff-assisted visit to AFIAA to assess the organization’s emergency preparedness and offer any assistance or advice.
As it turns out, they didn’t need it.
To date, the entire organization is 100 percent compliant on Base Emergency Preparedness Orientation training and shelter-in-place standards. The organization also has signage posted illustrating the steps to take in the event of evacuation or sheltering-in-place.
AFIAA has also developed its own yearly in-house training for emergency management-related drills.
“We actually called for a staff-assisted visit, which makes [unit compliance inspections] go a lot easier,” said Col. Gary Droubay, AFIAA vice commander. “Luckily, this is one program where there wasn’t need for much assistance.”
He noted that he expects a UCI for AFIAA in July.
Robert Avery, JBAB Office of Emergency Management, said he was thoroughly impressed with AFIAA’s emergency management program.
“The program not only impressed me, but also the two active-duty members who were present at the staff-assisted visit,” he said. “They both stated that they hadn't seen any unit take measures like that, even on their own base at Fort Meade. AFIAA has an outstanding emergency management program that far exceeds the standard of what is required for each unit. It's truly rewarding to see a unit take emergency preparedness as seriously as AFIAA does.”
The mission of The JBAB Emergency Management Program is to save lives, prevent human suffering, and mitigate great property damage in order to sustain and restore operational capability in an all-hazards physical threat environment.
Avery explained that having such a solid plan in place not only helps the unit, it helps emergency managers as well.
“I think it’s very important to highlight AFIAA’s excellent emergency management program, and encourage other units to get their programs up to speed, which in turn can help our office with our mission,” said Avery.
Tamara Crouse, an intelligence analyst with the Civil Aviation Intelligence Analysis Center, mentioned the unique challenge posed to the JBAB Emergency Management team brought on by the merger between the Air Force and the Navy here, Oct. 1, 2010.
“Going from an Air Force base to a Navy base dramatically impacted them, because they had about eight Air Force folks that transferred to (Joint Base) Andrews, and only three or four of them who stayed behind.”
Crouse added that before the new program was implemented, AFIAA members had almost no emergency training at all.
“I think part of why this program stood out to Mr. Avery is because we went from almost not having a program last March to where it is now,” said Crouse.
Droubay spoke highly of how willing the JBAB Emergency Management team was to help them get their program to where it currently is.
“With the BEPO training, the Emergency Management team was very cooperative with us,” he said. “We told them, ‘Hey, we’ve got a lot of folks who need training in this area,’ and they set aside specialized times for us to do it. That’s what you need sometimes, because we had to go from zero to 60.”
Senior Master Sgt. Nicole Wilson, AFIAA Mission Support superintendent, mentioned a few specifics that make their program stand out.
“My advice to the other mission partners on JBAB would be to just engage with the emergency managers,” she said. “They are the experts, and they were 100-percent on board to assist us anytime we needed it.”
Wilson detailed some of the specific aspects that have made AFIAA’s program so successful.
“The one thing that we can key on is our in-house exercises in addition to base exercises,” she said. “Not only do we participate with the base exercises, we also prepare ourselves internally. Our telephone recalls were pretty well documented, and we were able to reach everyone on the roster within an hour, after duty hours. We’ve done shelter-in-place and suspicious package exercises as well.”
Crouse, Droubay and Wilson also credited the AtHoc emergency mass notification system with helping their organization stay informed when there is any kind of incident or emergency on base.
“We normally get our notices from another server not on this base,” said Crouse. “So to get emergency alerts before, someone like Senior Master Sgt. Wilson would be the only one to receive the alert and then she would have to disseminate it to the rest of the organization.”
Droubay agreed.
“The AtHoc alerts have been a big help to mission partners like us,” he said. “We used to have to disseminate messages like the ones on AtHoc via e-mail. Those messages get to pretty much everyone now.”
Droubay said he would encourage other units on base to ramp up their emergency training, and summed it up with one quote.
“Dave Grossman, author of ‘On Killing,’ said, ‘In an emergency, people don’t rise to the occasion, they sink to the level of their training.’ An emergency is not the time to figure out what to do in an emergency.”
Droubay said that talking about in-house exercises afterward, what worked and what could’ve been done better, are also very important aspects of building a solid emergency management plan.
“Nobody is immune to emergency issues, whether it be an earthquake, or a terrorist attack or something else. All of those things are beyond our control, but we can control how we react when a situation does occur.”
| Date Taken: | 03.30.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 04.02.2012 10:05 |
| Story ID: | 86110 |
| Location: | WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, US |
| Web Views: | 76 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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