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    Emergency managers keep TCM prepared for disaster of any kind

    Emergency managers keep TCM prepared for disaster of any kind

    Photo By Tech. Sgt. Rachel Martinez | Airman 1st Class William Workman, 376th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron...... read more read more

    TRANSIT CENTER AT MANAS, KYRGYZSTAN

    03.09.2013

    Story by Tech. Sgt. Rachel Martinez 

    376th Air Expeditionary Wing

    TRANSIT CENTER AT MANAS, Kyrgyzstan - When disaster strikes, there are those who need help and those who provide help. The airmen assigned to the emergency management flight are some of those first responders who provide help.

    At the Transit Center at Manas, the 376th Expeditionary Civil Engineering Squadron Emergency Management Flight is responsible for developing plans and procedures to keep the base running should a disaster strike.

    In this deployed environment, emergency managers have three core functions: plans and operations, logistics, and training.

    The primary responsibility of the plans and operations section is maintaining the Transit Center's comprehensive emergency management plan, or CEMP 10-2.

    "Everyone is familiar with that plan because it talks about what we will do with regards to exercises, attacks, natural disasters, major accidents or terrorist use of a weapon of mass destruction," said Master Sgt. Michael Foster, 376 ECES Emergency Management Flight chief. "It's the biggest plan we manage. It takes all the areas and details what everyone will do to respond."

    In addition to the CEMP 10-2, the plans section manages the contingency response plan - a civil engineer-specific plan that prioritizes facilities and outlines how CE will respond to a given contingency - and a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High-Yield Explosives response plan. Each of the plans must be reviewed and updated on a yearly basis, a process that requires coordination with most other units.

    "We constantly have to make sure the contacts are up to date," said Staff Sgt. Casey Garwood, 376 ECES Emergency Management Flight NCO in charge of plans, deployed from Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. "Processes change too. We update the overall plan, but the supporting checklists are where you get in to more detail on what the units will do."

    When it comes to the individual unit's role in the emergency management program, Staff Sgt. Brandon Barnes, 376 ECES Emergency Management Flight NCO in charge of operations, ensures they are prepared.

    "Each unit has an EM representative that I work with," said Barnes, who is deployed from Joint Base Charleston, S.C. "I ensure the emergency operations center and unit control center personnel are trained. I also make sure the unit's shelter-in-place programs are good. This is all important for the whole mission of the EM program. In order for us to respond and recover from an incident, everyone needs to be trained on the program."

    The operations section is also responsible for running the emergency operations center, or EOC. The EOC acts as a central command and control facility with representatives from multiple functional areas that have a role in emergency response. The Transit Center's emergency management flight keeps the EOC in a warm status, ready for activation more than 12 hours a day. In the event the EOC is activated, the emergency managers ensure the various functional area representatives are reviewing and completing checklists according to the response plan.

    Along with running the EOC during a disaster, emergency managers respond themselves, most often when the disaster involves some kind of hazardous material or CBRNE response. The emergency managers are responsible for detecting, identifying, measuring and reporting any contaminates. They also establish and monitor requirements and procedures for contamination control.

    The logistics function of the emergency management flight primarily handles equipment - all the suits and detection equipment required when responding to any number of emergencies. The protective equipment must be inventoried and kept in operating condition in order to ensure safety.

    "The most important job is keeping our equipment ready," said Foster, who is deployed from Aviano Air Base, Italy. "If my equipment doesn't work, then people can die because I'm not able to identify what the threat is and tell them how to respond and recover."

    Equipment is checked on a regular basis to ensure it is properly functioning. Part of that function check comes with training - the third function of emergency management.

    "Our main training function is training people for the EOC and UCC," said Foster. "But we also have weekly in-house training to maintain proficiency."

    Along with in-house training, the emergency management flight plays a key role in training scenarios for the entire Transit Center.

    "Everyone does their own in-house exercises, but we also need to do that as a whole base," said Foster. "And we need to make those exercises as real as possible."

    The reason for realistic exercises is to prevent complacency and refine response processes.

    "Complacency is one place we can get in trouble," said Foster. "That's why we have exercises. If we don't exercise, then we don't think about it. If we don't have dust-off our processes and train on what we need to do, then we'll struggle when something really happens. If we practice these things and mess up, it's OK, but if it's a real-world situation and you forget something, then people can be hurt."

    Fortunately, the airmen in the emergency management flight train more than they actually respond to disasters.

    "We're here to respond in case there is an incident - kind of like an insurance policy in case something happens," said Foster. "We're not called upon to do our job that often. If we were really doing our job that means things are not going well here."

    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 03.09.2013
    Date Posted: 03.14.2013 08:13
    Story ID: 103455
    Location: TRANSIT CENTER AT MANAS, KG

    Web Views: 97
    Downloads: 0

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