Photo By Joseph Siemandel | The group from the Washington National Guard's Homeland Response Force and employees...... read more read more
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When a disaster strikes, first responders want to know what weather conditions might get in the way of an effective response – whether it’s icy roads, flooded rivers or record heat.
That is why when the Washington National Guard Homeland Response Force had the chance to tour the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Western Regional Center in Seattle, they took the opportunity knowing they could learn from the experts.
“I had previously met Reid Wolcott, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, at meetings and training exercises and understand that they play in important role during emergencies and that they have a great deal of capability that can be useful and helpful to us,” said Capt Luis Torres. “My thought process was to increase the awareness and knowledge of the capabilities of the 10th HRF to Reid and his co-workers at NOAA’s National Weather Service and vice versa.”
NOAA's Western Regional Center houses the largest variety of NOAA programs at a single location in the United States. Its mission is to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans and coasts, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.
“Reid shared a lot of information with us and with our intelligence staff,” said Torres. “He showed us how we could utilize the resources available better.”
The NOAA staff showed HRF members where to find high-accuracy weather reports, spot forecasts tailored to different types of incidents including hazardous material incidents and wildfires and the best place to find the most accurate models.
“The information provided by these resources is critical to anticipating weather’s effects on hazardous material incidents and our response operations during an incident,” said Sgt. 1st Class James Peters.
The HRF’s mission is to rapidly deploy with a full suite of Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear defense capabilities while supporting and enhancing the state and federal authorities. With the capabilities to activate more than 570 guardsmen to an incident, the HRF can provide mass decontamination, medical triage, security, search and extraction, fatality recovery, communications and command and control.
Not only is the HRF building relationships with NOAA, it continues to work hand in hand with the Washington Emergency Management Division, including EMD employee Patrick Wicklund, who conducts hazmat and continuity of government planning.
“Having Patrick Wicklund in our office is great, it allows face to face time that I think is taken for granted,” said Torres. “It is mutually beneficial. He shares with us, we share with him. Patrick came to NOAA with us.”
The goal of the meetings is to continue building strong relationships among the emergency management professionals, response personnel from the Guard and the weather professionals.
“I would like to take this one step further and set something up with our Air National Guard weather folks that are attached to the HRF and any others that are interested,” said Torres. “These meetings engage our community and develop relationships that will allow to more effectively respond to emergencies in our state.”
| Date Taken: | 01.21.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 01.22.2020 10:25 |
| Story ID: | 359882 |
| Location: | SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 69 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Homeland Response Force learns about weather forecasting from NOAA, by Joseph Siemandel, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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