For the sixth day, personnel at U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force base have been juggling a real world war, a mock terrorist attack in Seattle, Wash. and simulating an evacuation as a massive hurricane approaches the Washington, D.C. area.
"And now we're waiting to see if Burma needs help from the U.S.," said Army Maj. Gen. Charles W. Fletcher Jr., director of operations and plans at U.S. Transportation Command. "And if they do need us, we are ready to respond."
The Command is taking part in a national exercise involving dozens of federal, state and local agencies and Canada. The exercise involves mock Hurricane Zoe heading towards the east coast and pretend terrorists dropping a chemical weapon of mass destruction in downtown Seattle, near the Washington/Canada border and at the Washington/Oregon border.
"We work in a very rehearsed way to react to natural disasters in the U.S. to help first responders, local responders and federal agencies," Fletcher said. "It's our job to make sure FEMA is knowledgeable about what we have and how we are capable of helping them so they can utilize the full capability of what we have."
The exercise is just practice, one of about 18 such practices U.S. Transportation Command takes part in every year. Not all are on such a large national level, and some are staged in different countries or a war zone.
"We take our practice very seriously," said Marine Corps Lt. Col. Robert Kuckuk, chief of Joint Training and Education at the command. "If we don't practice it, we just set ourselves up to fail. Our practices can be simulated or real. It would be very expensive to move 15,000 people, but we can simulate it and practice it."
The impending hurricane, which was a category 4 storm Tuesday afternoon by the exercise standards, requires personnel to figure out how to best move people from a very large area efficiently and quickly.
"What do you do with prisoners? What do you do with people in hospitals? What do you do with the elderly?" Kuckuk said. "We decide how best to move them, then we get them moved with the resources available to us."
U.S. Transportation Command played a role in moving patients out of the disaster left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. They use the lessons learned then to continue to improve the command's patient-moving ability.
"Hurricane Katrina helped us in developing our system, and it trained us to maintain patient contact," said Army Col. Dr. William Statz, Command Surgeon. "One of the issues post-Katrina was 'Where did (the patient) go?' We've been developing a spreadsheet and a computer program useable by civilians who don't understand military-ease."
Contact reporter Jennifer A. Bowen at jbowen@bnd.com or 239-2667.
