Dover AFB hosts first-ever hurricane table top event

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Sarah Bergstein
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  Dover Air Force Base leadership from the 436th and 512th Airlift Wings hosted the first-ever hurricane table top event with local, state, and federal agencies May 20, 2015, here.

Participants in the table top event included members from Delaware Emergency Management Agency, Delaware Civil Air Patrol, Delaware National Guard, Defense Coordinating Element Region III, U.S. Northern Command, Federal Emergency Management Agency Region III, and Joint-Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

The event culminated Team Dover's five-day deployment and hurricane evacuation exercise that took place May 15-19 at the base and was intended to bring important incident management stakeholders to the table to discuss best practices and lessons learned concerning hurricane response and evacuation.

"Due to the ongoing $98.3 million runway construction on Dover, we have several months where we'll operate with 6,000 feet of active runway," said Col. Michael Grismer, 436th Airlift Wing commander. "The timing for restricting airfield operations to 6,000 feet, also coincides with peak hurricane season. One objective of this exercise was to validate our hurricane evacuation procedures on the short field."

"As we planned for this exercise, we also wanted to take advantage of the expertise provided by local, state and federal partner agencies who have experience in hurricane recovery efforts. Opening communications to build collaboration and trust with these partners was also one of our objectives," said Grismer.

The day-long event kicked off with agency overviews, transitioned to discussions about JB MDL's lessons learned and future recommendations from Hurricane Sandy, and concluded with a scenario-based group discussion regarding pre-posturing of equipment, supplies and personnel for disaster response as well as post-disaster response and recovery.

"These face-to-face meetings provide valuable dividends to all, especially the side bars we had during breaks where other organizations and agencies are interested in our plans and procedures," said Robert Hoban, Incident Management Assistant Team team leader, FEMA Region III. "This is all a part of the planning process, developing the plan, socializing your plans, and finally, exercising and continually adjusting and improving your plan."

Hoban added that through this exercise, participants were able to better understand how each organization prepares itself and then adjusts preparations based on the experiences and lessons learned from others.

"Recurring engagements with our regional stakeholders such as state, FEMA, and other federal agencies as well as Department of Defense partners are critical to us sustaining our operational capability, said Jeffrey Keefe, Emergency Management Specialist, ARNORTH Region III DCE. "We make every effort to coordinate and provide training, participate in exercises, perform site visits, and represent U.S. Army Northern Command as guest speakers when requested."

Future engagements have not been scheduled but Dover AFB leadership plans to continue hosting these table top events to foster ongoing planning and communication among agencies in preparation for potential disasters.