Moody prepares for hurricane season

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Mona Ferrell
  • 347th Rescue Wing Public Affairs
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFPN) --  Airmen here buckled up the base, battled heavy winds and provided support for off-base recovery efforts during a hurricane evacuation exercise held May 15 to 18.

Responding to “Hurricane Timothy” provided a realistic evaluation of the 347th Rescue Wing’s capability to plan and take the proper precautions for an impending natural disaster, said Maj. Jim Ripple, chief of inspections for the wing.

“Basically, through these exercises we’re evaluating and teaching the wing how to adapt and respond to situations that may occur if a natural disaster were to take place here,” Major Ripple, one of the primary planners for the exercise, said.  “We’re practicing for real-world scenarios so that any type of injury or damage that occurs is kept to a minimum.”

And with the 2006 hurricane season just on the horizon, practicing for a real-world natural disaster is extremely important, the major said.

“Hurricanes have the capability to impact Moody in both an active and a passive way,” he said. “There’s a possibility that residual effects of a hurricane could come up this way very easily. And because of our search and rescue mission here, it’s important that we plan and know what to do when a hurricane hits somewhere else.

“This scenario kind of adapted both,” he said. “We exercised the whole concept.  We prepared for the hurricane and when it made landfall in Southern Florida we packed up to provide assistance. Then, as the hurricane swept back into the Gulf and headed north, we continued to prepare for evacuation.”

The exercise planners worked on keeping the exercise as close to reality as possible, said Master Sgt. Pete Solberg, the wing's noncommissioned officer in charge of inspections.

“These exercises are meant to be very realistic,” he said.  “After-action reports from Hurricane Katrina helped build this scenario, so this particular exercise is pretty much the same as what we actually saw last year.”

The validation of these after-action items is what it’s all about, said Senior Master Sgt. Edward Kuczynski, wing inspections superintendent.

“One thing we learned from last year is when we mobilize and deploy to help people, no one gives us what we need to take; it’s our job to have that figured out ahead of time,” Sergeant Kuczynski said. “The lessons learned from (Hurricane) Katrina -- who we should take and what assets would be needed to support efforts after a hurricane hit -- were all tested in this exercise in hopes of preparing us for future hurricane evacuations.”

This “testing” is done at the lowest level, Sergeant Kuczynski said.

“This exercise, like all of our wing exercises, brought the evaluation and testing down to the unit level,” he said. “Everyone, down to the youngest troop in the unit, should be able to run the (hurricane condition) checklist. Everyone should know where the checklists are and they should know their role in overall base preparedness.”

Unit-level evaluation also played a big part in the hazardous material, conventional munitions and anti-terrorism portions of the exercise, Major Ripple said. These events were built into the exercise to evaluate the first responders' ability to handle more than one event at the same time.

“While each situation is unique, this is exactly what occurs in real life,” he said. “When people are stressed, mistakes tend to be made.  And it’s very easy for one thing to happen that spawns another unanticipated situation to take place.

“It’s a lot better to make mistakes during the planning and evaluation than it is for real,” Major Ripple said.  “Hopefully this exercise was a good learning lesson for the wing so we can be prepared for disasters we may encounter in the future.”