Photo By Angelina Betran | Joffree Gilliard, from Installation Management Command-Pacific, evaluates Sgt. Louis...... read more read more
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FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. — Sirens were blaring, gates were closed and emergency responders raced against time Tuesday as the Fort Leonard Wood community took park in a full-scale exercise.
“Full-scale exercises do not just exercise emergency management personnel. They must include all employees, service members and family members to educate and practice emergency plans to be successful during an emergency incident. Everyone plays a role, regardless of how large or small,” said Matthew Mertz, Fort Leonard Wood’s Installation Emergency Manager.
According to Mertz, the organizations activated in the exercise were the Fort Leonard Wood Directorate of Public Works; Logistics Readiness Center; Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation; Directorate of Emergency Services; Public Affairs Office; General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital; Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security; Directorate of Human Resources; Staff Judge Advocate; Explosive Ordinance Disposal; Network Enterprise Center; and role players from the training brigades.
“Over 150 people played a role; evaluators, planners, first responders, a Crisis Action Team, logistics, legal, public affairs, public works and dining facility employees,” Mertz said.
The access gates were closed for about 10 minutes and the post was temporarily placed on lock-down during the eight-hour exercise. Mertz said it is important to practice and not just notionally walk through the exercise, so evaluators can verify emergency procedures are working.
“Practicing real action, like shutting down the gates and locking down the installation, ensures pre-established response plans are appropriately communicated and are executable,” Mertz explained.
Emergency exercises of this size take about a year to plan, according to Mertz, and incorporate personnel from outside Fort Leonard Wood to evaluate the post’s response.
“This specific exercise involved evaluators and planners from (U.S. Army Installation Management Command) along with planners on Fort Leonard Wood. The IMCOM evaluators provide an external observation of our emergency response plans and provide feedback to each directorate on what to sustain and improve,” Mertz said. “In addition, the external evaluators provide lessons learned and best practices from their observations at other installation’s full-scale exercises.”
Duane Bestul, a full-scale exercise evaluator for IMCOM, reiterated that point.
“Over the years, I have learned a ton of information that I can share with other installations after their exercise,” Bestul said. “We don’t bring pre-conceived notions about how things should be done.”
He and 10 other evaluators were on post Tuesday to analyze the installation’s response to mock disaster situations.
“I have been doing this for roughly 43 years. In that time, I have seen what not being prepared looks like. Emergency preparedness is very near and dear to my heart. We can replace buildings. We can replace equipment. We can’t replace people. People are our No. 1 resource,” Bestul said. “These exercises are designed to stress and possibly even break the installation’s response capabilities.”
Currently, the IMCOM evaluation team is developing an after-action review to provide observations of tasks that were verified as proficient, tasks to sustain, tasks to retrain and lessons learned, according to Mertz.
“Sixty days after the review, the evaluation team provides a formal written report to the garrison commander and the garrison staff has an additional 60 days to create a plan of action to improve and sustain the evaluators’ observations,” Mertz said.
According to Mertz, the exercise did what it was supposed to do.
“Ensure the public understands what to do in response to a natural or manmade disaster.”
| Date Taken: | 04.11.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 05.25.2023 14:13 |
| Story ID: | 445572 |
| Location: | FORT LEONARD WOOD, MISSOURI, US |
| Web Views: | 53 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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