Indian Island part of Navy NW emergency exercise

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Naval Magazine Indian Island and Naval Air Station Whidbey Island are among the installations expected to take part in an earthquake response and recovery exercise Sept. 5-7.

Liane Nakahara, public affairs specialist for Navy Region Northwest, explained all U.S. Navy bases in the Northwest region, which also includes Naval Base Kitsap and Naval Station Everett, will be conducting the annual “Citadel Rumble” exercise to test the Navy’s abilities to prepare for, respond to and recover from a simulated major earthquake.

Nakahara elaborated that, in this case, the earthquake scenario is expected to trigger multiple other simulated hazardous events.

“People near a Navy installation may see or hear activities related to the multi-day exercise, but this activity is not expected to impact the public outside of Navy property,” Nakahara said. “Exercise activity that could potentially be observed include messages played over the Navy’s emergency notification loudspeaker system, and increased emergency response vehicle and personnel activity, but the Navy aims to minimize impact to the public as much as possible during such exercises.”

For Naval Magazine Indian Island, one possible exercise might be a simulated coordinated personnel rescue event, during which agencies ranging from Navy fire and emergency services, to local and regional civilian fire and rescue departments and districts, would be tasked with working together to locate and retrieve personnel.

Those personnel would be simulating the act of being immobilized and injured in the wake of the earthquake and aftershock scenario so that various crews of responders could practice freeing, treating and transporting them to safety and more advanced medical care, while also coordinating how to transfer custody of the personnel between assorted agencies along the way.

While Nakahara couldn’t confirm many details, she was able to verify the exercise activities should include assessments of simulated damages to infrastructure, and any necessary actions taken to respond to those damages, while working through intermittent simulations of power, internet and network outages.

“Personnel at Indian Island have also been coordinating pieces of this exercise with the Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management and East Jefferson Fire Rescue, and we’re thankful for their participation in this exercise,” Nakahara said. “This gives the Navy the opportunity to practice responding to rescue scenarios with its mutual aid and community partners.”

According to Nakahara this is part of the exercise’s purpose of providing Navy personnel the opportunity to practice utilizing its emergency management teams, processes, procedures and partnerships with local mutual aid agencies, to be better prepared to respond to real-world disasters.

“The exercise will also further enhance the Navy’s readiness and ability to deploy forces even under the most adverse conditions,” said Nakahara, who added the Navy would test out its evacuation and consequence management plans, as well as its methods of accounting for both sailors and Navy families in the regions affected by a disaster, through the Navy Family Accountability and Assessment System.

From the Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management’s side of things, even before Willie Bence took over as the DEM’s current director back in July, he told The Leader how he was drawn to the county because of what he saw as a strong pre-existing emergency management program.

“Emergency preparations are clearly already embedded in the culture of this county, but I’d like to develop that even further,” Bence said. “During an emergency, we tend to think in terms of people stepping up to meet the challenge, when what they actually do is sink to the level of their training. The value of constant emergency preparedness exercises is that you can fall back on that muscle memory.”