Photo By Sgt. Danielle Rodrigues | Members of the Texas State Guard brief command staff on the status of their mission...... read more read more
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By Michelle McBride
Texas Military Forces
CAMP MABRY, Texas – With the Atlantic hurricane season in full swing, members of the Texas State Guard participated in a statewide annual training exercise, June 5-8, 2014, in which each area partnered with local, state and federal agencies to simulate sheltering operations during a real world disaster and its emergency response.
An annual exercise for the volunteer component of the Texas Military Forces, this year’s joint disaster and emergency response training strengthened partnerships with the American Red Cross and other Emergency Management Departments by conducting multiple exercises within the unit’s home region.
“This year we decided to go with a distributed armories approach,” said Col. Frank Stead, Deputy J3 Operations, Texas State Guard. “What this means is that instead of our members meeting in one location for training; we will be working out of our own armories, each one in conjunction with other emergency management agencies.”
In Austin, members of the headquarters component met with personnel of the Central Texas Chapter of the American Red Cross and participated in building temporary shelters for hands-on training.
During that time, other members of the State Guard stayed at Camp Mabry and worked with the Web Emergency Operations Center where they were able to maintain contact and coordinate events with all supporting units. For example, during one exercise, soldiers in the Operations Center were required to brief command staff on events occurring in other cities.
“The Operations Center is the central control point,” said Sgt. Jason Lopez, logistics noncommissioned officer, Texas State Guard. “It gathers information from the field and passes it along to the appropriate personnel.”
Through these partnerships, the State Guard proceeded with responding to crisis as they would in a real world situation.
“In the event of a natural disaster, the Red Cross immediately goes into action setting up shelters,” said Stead. “The State Guard then begins the process of assigning people to those shelters through the Texas Emergency Tracking Network banding process.”
According to Stead, this banding process helps to identify who is located in specific shelters, which is especially important when trying to keep families together during emergency situations. In addition, the band is also a person’s ticket to ride on provided transportation to and from shelters.
With the mission of the Texas Military Forces to provide the governor and the president with ready and trained forces in support of the citizens of Texas and State and Federal civil/military authorities at home and abroad, it is joint training exercises of this nature that allow the Texas State Guard to collaborate with the appropriate local, state and federal agencies ahead of a disaster and share best practices.
“Overall, the training was amazing,” said Ken Armstrong, volunteer, Central Texas Chapter-American Red Cross. “To see the high level of interest from the Guard was great. It made me proud to see their continued efforts toward domestic safety.”
Members of the Texas State Guard conducted exercises in Denton, Brownwood, Port Aransas, Sugarland, Dallas and Midland.
| Date Taken: | 06.06.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 06.27.2014 14:57 |
| Story ID: | 134736 |
| Location: | AUSTIN, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 450 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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